I was among those lifting the branches of the tree away from the face of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was delivering a sermon. He said, "Were it not that dogs are a community among the communities, I would have ordered them all to be killed. So kill every pure black one among them. No household keeps a dog except that a qirat is deducted from their deeds each day, unless it is a dog used for hunting, farming, or guarding sheep."
إني لممن يرفع أغصان الشجرة عن وجه رسول الله ﷺ وهو يخطب، فقال: لولا أن الكلاب أمة من الأمم لأمرت بقتلها، فاقتلوا منها كل أسود بهيم. وما من أهل بيت يرتبطون كلبا إلا نقص من عملهم كل يوم قيراط، إلا كلب صيد أو كلب حرث أو كلب غنم.
Abu Dawud (2845), Tirmidhi (1486), Nasai (4280), and Ibn Majah (3205) narrated it, and Ibn Hibban (5657) graded it sahih. All of them narrated it through Yunus bin Ubayd, from Hasan, from Abdullah bin Mughafal, who then narrated the hadith, though some of them abridged it. Its chain is sahih. Hasan explicitly stated that he heard this hadith from Abdullah bin Mughafal, as shown by what Ahmad (20548) narrated from Waki, from Abu Sufyan bin Ala, who said, I heard Hasan narrating that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Were it not that dogs are a nation among nations, I would have ordered them killed, so kill every pure black one among them." He said, a man then asked him, "O Abu Saeed, from whom did you hear this?" He said, "Abdullah bin Mughafal told it to me" - and he swore an oath - "from the Prophet ﷺ, such and such [years] ago, and he indeed told it to us in that very gathering." End of quote.Ibn Hibban (5656) mentioned something similar, and likewise Imam Ahmad (20564) reported from Abdul-Samad, I asked Hasan about a man who keeps a dog in his house. He said, Abdullah bin Mughafal told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Whoever keeps a dog, one qirat is deducted from his reward every day."As for Ibn Hibban's claim that "Abu Sufyan bin Ala has no other connected hadith in the world besides this one," this is not as he said, for he has another hadith, namely, "If the time for prayer comes while you are in the pens of sheep, then pray, but if it comes while you are in the resting places of camels, do not pray, for they were created from devils." Imam Ahmad (20541) narrated it from Waki, from Abu Sufyan bin Ala, from Hasan, from Ibn Mughafal, who narrated it. Hasan was known to obscure the source of his reports, and he did not explicitly state that he heard this one directly, even though he did explicitly state that he heard the hadith about killing dogs directly. But this does not mean he heard everything else reported from him directly.The jurisprudence of this chapter, these hadiths indicate that selling a dog and taking payment for it are forbidden. This is the view of the majority of scholars, including Shafii, Ahmad, Uzai, Ishaq, and others, whether the dog is trained or untrained, and no compensation is owed by one who kills it. There is a narration from Malik that selling it is not permissible, and that compensation is owed by one who kills it, like an umm al-walad, whose sale is not permissible but for whose killing compensation is due. A group of scholars held that whatever it is permissible to keep may be sold, and whatever it is forbidden to keep may not be sold. This is a middle position, and there is no harm in acting on it given the pressing need for it, especially in certain sectors such as customs, airports, police, and the like. Abu Hanifa and his followers held that it is permissible to sell dogs that have some benefit, as stated in Umda (11/203), "As for selling fanged beasts of prey other than pigs, such as dogs, leopards, lions, tigers, wolves, bears, cats, and the like, this is permissible according to our scholars." Tahawi held that the command to kill dogs, followed by its abrogation, is what accounts for the differing rulings. When the command to kill dogs was given, taking payment for them became forbidden, then benefiting from them for hunting and other purposes was permitted and killing them was prohibited, so the earlier prohibition on selling them and taking payment for them was abrogated. See for more Minna Kubra (5/215–219), where I have set out the scholars' positions in detail and cited their evidence. Success comes from Allah.As for his saying, "Two qirats are deducted from his deeds every day," with another version saying "one qirat," this relates to the fierceness of the dog and how much harm it causes others. Or it may be due to differences between regions, so that in Makkah and Madinah two qirats are deducted from his deeds, while elsewhere it is one qirat. The qirat was not known among the Arabs, rather it was one of the weight measures used by the people of Egypt, as reported in Sahih Muslim (2543: 227) from Abu Dharr, attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, "You will conquer Egypt, a land where the qirat is used, so when you conquer it, treat its people well, for they have a claim of protection and kinship." The qirat is a fraction of the dinar and the dirham. Today one qirat weighs 200 milligrams, and a thousand qirats equal one gram.