Dog’s Saliva [ Shafi’i ]

Answered by Shaykh Abdurragmaan Khan

Question: Assalam alaykum,

If a dog touches me, is it necessary to wash the area licked seven times in the shafi’i school?

Answer: Wa alaykum al-Salam

JazakaLlah khayr for your question.

Any substance that comes in contact with the najasah of a dog has to be washed seven times, one of the washings should be with sand. This is based on the hadith of Abu Hurayrah radiyaLlahu anhu that the Messenger sallaLlahu alayhi wasallam said: “The purification of the vessel of one of you, if a dog licks it, is to wash it seven times, one of those times with soil.”

Accordingly, if a dog licked you, you will have to wash that part of your body or clothing seven times, once with sand. You may, however, replace the usage of sand with soap. This though debated in the Shafi’i school, was considered permissible by Imam al-Nawawi and others [Kifayah al-Akhyar]

Also, please note that najasah, be it of a dog or otherwise, can only transfer over to your body or clothing via the medium of water. Touching a dry dog with dry clothing does not necessitate the transferal of najasah.

And Allah knows best

Wassalam
[Shaykh] Abdurragmaan Khan

Shaykh Abdurragmaan received ijazah ’ammah from various luminaries, including but not restricted to: Habib Umar ibn Hafiz—a personality who affected him greatly and who has changed his relationship with Allah, Maulana Yusuf Karaan—the former Mufti of Cape Town; Habib ‘Ali al-Mashhur—the current Mufti of Tarim; Habib ‘Umar al-Jaylani—the Shafi‘i Mufti of Makkah; Sayyid Ahmad bin Abi Bakr al-Hibshi; Habib Kadhim as-Saqqaf; Shaykh Mahmud Sa’id Mamduh; Maulana Abdul Hafiz al-Makki; Shaykh Ala ad-Din al-Afghani; Maulana Fazlur Rahman al-Azami and Shaykh Yahya al-Gawthani amongst others.