MIRACLE 14 – DOG BITES THE HYPOCRITIES

The below incident is narrated from Abu Hureyra in the book Al-Fazail of Ibn Shazaan.

‘We prayed the morning prayer with Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.), then he (s.a.w.a.) turned his noble face towards us and started narrating a traition. A man from the helpers (ansaar) came to him (s.a.w.a.) and said, ‘O Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.)! A dog of so and so ‘Zimmi’ (Jew or a Christian under Muslim protection) has torn my clothes, and it scratched my leg, so I was prevented from performing the prayer with you (s.a.w.a.)’.

When it was during the second day, another man from the companions came and said, ‘O Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.)! A dog of so and so ‘Zimmi’ has torn my clothes and scratched my leg, so it prevented me from performing the prayers with you (s.a.w.a.)’.

He (s.a.w.a.) said: ‘When the dog has become mordacious, it obligates killing it’. Then he (s.a.w.a.) stood up and we stood up with him (s.a.w.a.) and came to the house of that man. Anas rushed and knocked the door. He said, ‘Who is at the door?’ Anas said, ‘The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) is at your door’.

He (the narrator) said, ‘The man came rushing and opened the door and came out to the Prophet (s.a.w.a.) and said, ‘May my father and my mother be (sacrificed for) you, O Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.a.)! What is that for which you have come for to me, and I am not upon your religion. Indeed! If you had sent for me, I would have answered you’.

The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) said: ‘There was a need for us. Bring out your dog for he is mordacious, and its killing is obligated. It has torn the clothes of so and so and scratched his leg, and such is how it has done with so and so (as well)’. The man rushed to his dog and dropped a rope around its neck and dragged it to him (s.a.w.a.) and paused it in front of Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.).

When the dog looked at Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.), it said in an eloquent tongue by the Permission of Allah, the Almighty, ‘The greetings be unto you, O Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.)! What is that which you have come for, and why are you intending to kill me?’

He (s.a.w.a.) said: ‘You have torn the clothes of so and so, and so and so, and scratched their legs’.

It said, ‘O Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.)! The people you are mentioning are hypocrites and hostile. They hate the son of your uncle, Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s.). And had they not been like that, I would not have been opposed to them, but they exceeded in rejecting Imam Ali (a.s.) and reviling him (a.s.). So, I was seized by the fatherly protection and the Arabian vehemence, and I did with them (what I did)’.

He (the narrator) said, ‘When the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) heard that from the dog, he (s.a.w.a.) instructed his (s.a.w.a.) companion with being kind to it and bequeathed with it. Then he (s.a.w.a.) stood up to go out, and then the owner of the dog, the Zimmi had stood up upon his feet and said, ‘Are you going, O Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.), and my dog has testified that you are a Messenger of Allah, and that the son of your uncle, Ali (a.s.) is Guardian of Allah, the Almighty!’

Then he became a Muslim, and so did entirety of the ones who were in his house’’¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 41, Chp 111, Trad 15 ↩