A few weeks ago after liturgy, several of us were discussing Islam and Orthodoxy. The teenage daughter of a couple I know related an episode that happened to her at school. First of all, this family is from Syria, so they look "Middle Eastern," but the children do not speak English with any accent. It seems the teenage daughter was wearing her cross, and a friend of hers, a Muslim girl, noticed it. The Muslim girl whispered something under her breath in Arabic. Our teenage confessor understood it and confronted her at once, asking, "How dare you call me a dog!" The Muslim girl tried to make excuses, then begged our teenage heroine not to tell anyone, to which she graciously consented. However, the next day, when her mother came to pick her up at the school, the mother of the Muslim girl was there too, and gave her an evil glare...
The lesson of the story: Even in America, Muslims are raised to think of Christians as infidels, no better than a dog.
Islamic Teaching: Non-Muslims Equal to Dogs
by Raymond Ibrahim — 8/29/2013
Among those familiar with the true teachings of Islam, it is well known that the life — or as articulated in Arabic, the “blood” — of an infidel, that is, a non-Muslim, is not equal to the life/blood of a Muslim. Few know, however, that among some of Islam’s respected hadith collections, the blood of a non-Muslim is no better than the blood of a dog.
(Dog-lovers should bear in mind that, in Islam, to be compared to a dog is about the worst and most degrading insult.)
Brother Rashid (a former Muslim turned Christian) recently discussed this during his Arabic-language show, Su’al Jari’ (“Daring Question,” which I recently appeared on to discuss my book, Crucified Again).
According to a hadith recorded among other places in Sunan Ahmed (Hanbali jurisprudence) and Sunan al-Bayhaqi (Shafi’i jurisprudence), during the course of a discussion about non-Muslims, Caliph Omar al-Khattab — one of Sunni Islam’s “four righteous caliphs” — declared “They are heathens, and the blood of one of them is [like] the blood of a dog.”