Rodents and IEDs.

• Author: Aboul-Enein, Youssef
• Position: Readers' Forum

* Regarding Eric Beidel's Defense Technology Newswire segment (May 2011, p. 18) entitled "Will African Rodents Joint the Hunt for IEDs?" the article asserted that canines are not looked upon favorably in Muslim culture. We need a more nuanced understanding of the Islamic view on dogs. Since Islam has 1.5 billion adherents, there is not a general agreement on the issue of aversion towards dogs.

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The majority of the schools of Islam both Shia and Sunni view dogs as ritually unclean, however the Maliki School, one of four schools of Sunni Islam, disagrees with this view.

Islamic tradition also holds that angels do not enter the home in which dogs are kept inside.

On the other hand, Islamic tradition also generally approves of the use of dogs for work, such as guard and hunting dogs. In the 21st century one could extrapolate finding IEDs as part of that Islamic rationale.

Of note, there was a pre-lslamic form of mythology in which black dogs specifically were considered evil or...