Another argument is that the cat is ritually pure while alive. A number of scholars—including the Hanbalis—build on this to say that a sale is only valid when the object possesses monetary value (ʿayn māliyya), and a cat, in their view, does not qualify as property.

The majority of jurists, however, allow its sale. They interpret the hadith as one of mere discouragement and refinement of character, pointing out that people customarily give cats away or lend them without charge. Yet this reading departs from the plain wording, for a prohibition (nahy) signifies unlawfulness, and the term zajr used in the report conveys an even stronger sense of censure. The operative reason for the ban, they say, is the absence of a real, sought-after benefit in the animal.

2 – The same hadith also points to the prohibition of taking payment for a dog and, by implication, the prohibition of selling it. Al-Bukhari and Muslim both relate the report of Abū Masʿūd: “The Prophet ﷺ forbade the price of a dog.” Since its price is forbidden, its sale must likewise be forbidden, for the dog is intrinsically impure and is only kept when a genuine need exists.

3 – The wording found in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections is unrestricted. Al-Nasāʾī, however, records the additional clause—already judged weak—“except a hunting dog.” Because of that addition the jurists disagreed over whether a dog may ever be sold.

The majority—including the two imāms, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad—hold that its sale is impermissible even when it is a hunting, farming, or herding dog. One may keep such dogs out of need, but their sale and their price remain unlawful, for the basic rule of a prohibition is that it signifies illegality.

Al-Khaṭṭābī commented: Being allowed to benefit from something in a case of necessity does not entail the permissibility of selling it; carrion, for instance, may be eaten by one in dire straits, yet its sale is still forbidden. Abū Ḥanīfah, by contrast, maintained that selling a dog is permissible in all circumstances, whether or not keeping it is allowed.

ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ and Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī stated: The kinds of dogs one is permitted to keep may be sold, and those one is forbidden to keep may not be sold.