LESSONS FROM THE DOG

Sultan Knish describes the contempt with which Muslims consider "man's best friend," but he concludes:

Islam teaches its followers the violent cruelty of the animal, but suppresses the natural affection, the sense of joy that living things are meant to have.

"There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam," Khomeini said. Additionally there is no mercy, no tolerance, no trust, no faith, no honor, no decency and nothing but deceit and death. There is no room in it for the simple virtues of a dog or the higher virtues of a man.

From the dogs who walk the front lines in Afghanistan to the rescue dogs who took the lead at Ground Zero, to the animals who are tortured and murdered every day in the Muslim world-- we can learn courage, loyalty and friendship. While the media insists on telling us how much we can learn from Islam-- there is more of goodness, decency and honor to be learned from a dog, than there is from the entire Koran.

That's quite a sweeping statement. Perhpas it would be more judicious to qualify it by saying, echoing the witty title of Ibn Al-Marzuban's 10th century "Book of the Superiority of Dogs over Some of Those Who Wear Clothes," that there is more goodness, decency, and honor to be learned from certain dogs, than there is from the Koran.