Is It Permitted to Sell Cats and Dogs?

Answered by Ustadh Salman Younas

Question: Assalam aleykum

Is it permitted to sell cats and dogs? What about the hadith prohibiting it in Sahih Muslim?

Answer: assalamu alaykum

It is permitted to sell cats and dogs in the Hanafi school. This is because both are considered pure and among those animals that can be benefitted from. [al-Kasani, al-Bada`i (5:142)]

The hadith found in Sahih Muslim either refers to (a) selling of cats and dogs that are deemed to be undomesticated or (b) to such a sale being slightly disliked. Regardless of which interpretation is favored, the selling of domesticated cats and dogs, or those that can be domesticated, would be valid and permissible in the school.

[Ustadh] Salman Younas

Checked and approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadh Salman Younas graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Political Science and Religious Studies. After studying the Islamic sciences online and with local scholars in New York, Ustadh Salman moved to Amman. There he studies Islamic law, legal methodology, belief, hadith methodology, logic, Arabic, and tafsir.