Related
Translate
Previous entry: Court: Monitoring Muslim visitors was legal
Next entry: UK: Reforms would allow non-Protestant heir and end male priority
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Polygamist Sect Leader Convicted of Sexual Assault
- Jury takes 14 minutes to convict self-proclaimed pot pastor
- Supreme Court upholds cult AUM Shinrikyo members’ death sentences
- Newspaper continues series of exposés of Scientology cult
- Epic Mohammad movie in pipeline
- Coptic Christian Blogger in Egypt Pressured to Convert to Islam in Prison
- Italian judge convicts 23 in CIA kidnapping of Muslim cleric
- Cult leader Warren Jeffs’ attorneys argue sect leader faced wrong charge
- Texas judge limits some records in FLDS trial over polygamy references
- Fort Hood shooting: imam says Nalid Malik Husan ‘didn’t seem like an extremist’
British Muslim body OKs taking guide dog to mosque
More articles on this topic: IslamBritish Muslim body OKs taking guide dog to mosque
LONDON: A British Muslim body has ruled that a blind student can take a guide dog with him to his local mosque, a judgment Muslim and blind advocacy groups are hailing as a breakthrough.
The Muslim Law Council (Shariah) UK issued a fatwa allowing 18-year-old Mahomed-Abraar Khatri to take his dog with him to the Bilal Jamia Mosque in the English city of Leicester, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London.
“I hope it will should open up some doors and let other people to get a dog and not be worried of any religious aspects behind it,” Khatri told British Broadcasting Corp. television in an interview broadcast Wednesday.
Observant Muslims generally regard dogs as unclean and they are not allowed in mosques. It was not immediately clear whether this was the first time a dog has been allowed in a British mosque — or whether the move had any precedent elsewhere.
Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman for the U.S.-based Council on American Islamic Relations, said he had never heard of a guide dog being allowed into or turned away from a mosque in the United States.
“I suspect that most people with dogs will self-police, and won’t go to the mosque with a dog,” he said.
Under the British fatwa, Khatri’s dog still cannot go into the prayer hall. Instead, Khatri leaves it in a gated area in the entryway near where the shoes are kept.
The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association described the decision as “a massive step forward for other blind and partially-sighted Muslims”.
Previously, all dogs were banned from mosques because the Islamic faith historically sees them as being for guarding and hunting only. However, the position was softened because guide dogs could be classed in the “working dogs” category.
[...]A special rest area has been set up in the entrance of the Bilal Jamia mosque for Vargo while Khatri is praying.
[...]After issuing the fatwa, Muhammad Shahid Raza, director of the Imams and Mosques Council UK and secretary of the Muslim Law (Sharia) Council UK, said: “I hope that all existing mosques will follow Bilal mosque in serving the disabled people in a similar way by providing facilities to them. I also believe that, in all new mosques, such facilities for disabled people will be an essential part of their design.”
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Court: Monitoring Muslim visitors was legal Next entry: UK: Reforms would allow non-Protestant heir and end male priority
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
