Ustadh Tabraze Azam is asked if it is permissible to disregard dog saliva if the dog serves a useful function.
I read in one of your answers that if you work in a place where a dog may lick your clothes quite often it is allowed for a Hanafi person to follow the Maliki opinion on the matter and be able to pray.
I was wondering, if the dog licks a person on Monday and the person wears the same clothes to work on Tuesday but doesn’t get any saliva on his clothes on Tuesday, can he still pray in those clothes or is it essential that he should have worn clean clothes to begin with on Tuesday when coming to work for that rukhsa to be valid?
Insha Allah you get a chance to answer.
The basis is that it is acceptable to take a dispensatory ruling from another legal school (madhhab) if there is a hardship (haraj/mashaqqa), or a need (haja) or benefit (fa’ida) in doing so. This is on condition that you avoid impermissible talfiq, namely, joining between the positions of the legal schools in a manner which none would deem valid.
Thereafter, if there is actual difficulty in upholding the Hanafi position of the ritually filthy nature of the saliva of dogs, it would be permitted to follow another legal school on the issue, the details of which may be sought from its scholars. As for the applicability of the dispensation, it doesn’t have a time restriction as we are talking about a type of saliva affecting your clothing.
Please also see Dog Saliva, Dog Hair, and How to Purify Impurities, Can I Pray in Clothes that Were Licked by a Dog? and Why Is Mixing Between Madhabs (Talfiq) Impermissible When The Earlier Generations Seem To Have Done It?
And Allah Most High knows best.
Wassalam,
Tabraze Azam
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