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Fatwa CenterKeeping guard dog inside house
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I understand that it is okay to own a dog to protect your property, but is it okay to bring the dog inside to protect the home. The house design in the area where I live makes guarding the home from the garden unfeasable.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
Scholars held different opinions regarding keeping a dog for the purpose of guarding one's house and the like in case of need. The preponderant view in this regard is that it is permissible in analogy with keeping a dog for the purpose of hunting or guarding livestock or crops, which has been deemed permissible by the Prophet, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam. The Prophet, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, said, “Whoever keeps a dog, except for the purpose of guarding crops or sheep or hunting, will lose a qiraat (a huge portion) of the reward from his good deeds daily.” [Muslim]
Al-ʻIraaqi 
said, “Scholars differed regarding keeping a dog for a fourth purpose, namely guarding houses and paths and the like. Some scholars of our school (of Fiqh) said, 'It is impermissible, because of this hadeeth and other evidence. The forbiddance is explicit except for these three purposes.' (However) most of them said that it is permissible by way of analogy to the three purposes, which is the more correct view, based on the reason that is understood from this hadeeth, which is necessity.”
As for letting the dog inside the house, if the needed guarding is not fulfilled except by keeping the dog inside the house, then there is no harm in that.
It should be noted, though, that scholars held different opinions as to whether the presence of a guard dog, which one is permissible to keep, prevents angels from entering the house or not. Some held that guard dogs prevent the angels from entering the house; and this is the apparent view of An-Nawawi in his book Sharh Muslim. Other scholars, on the other hand, maintained that only dogs kept for unlawful purposes prevent the angels from entering the house, whereas dogs kept for a valid purpose do not prevent the angels from entering the house. This is the view adopted by Al-Khattaabi and the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa. Its fatwa reads, “Whoever keeps a dog for hunting or guarding, it is permissible for him, and thus it does not prevent the angels from entering the house.”
Allaah knows best.
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