1161 – Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Whoever keeps a dog—except a dog for herding livestock, or for hunting, or for guarding crops—will lose one qirāt of his reward every day.” Agreed upon. (1)

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• māshiyah (livestock): a term that encompasses camels, cattle, and sheep. It is most often used for sheep, and its plural is mawāshī.
• aw (or): a coordinating particle with various meanings; here it expresses alternative or variety.
• qirāt: a measure of weight whose exact value has differed across periods. Today it is the weight of four barley grains and, in older reckoning, one-twenty-fourth of a larger unit. In reports such as this its precise amount is indeterminate. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever follows the funeral of a Muslim and remains until the burial is completed returns with two qirāts; each qirāt is like Mount Uhud.” In the present ḥadith the word qirāt is in the nominative because it serves as the agent of a passive verb.
• kalb (dog): a domesticated animal of the canine family, order Carnivora; its plurals are kilāb and aklub.
Al-Damīrī writes: “The dog is neither a pure predator nor a grazing animal; it is a composite creature. Had the traits of predation been fully developed in it, it would not befriend people, and had the traits of grazing animals been complete, it would not eat the flesh of other creatures. Dogs are of two kinds: domestic and salūqī, named after—”