and the black dog. Of all such dogs it is the fiercest and most defiant; it belongs to the rebellious devils, which is why an authentic hadith commands that it be killed.

Scholarly disagreement:
The three Imams (Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, and al-Shāfiʿī) hold that someone or something passing in front of a worshipper does not invalidate the prayer, even if the passer-by is a woman, a donkey, or a jet-black dog. They cite the report transmitted by Abū Dāwūd (719) from Abū Saʿīd, in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “Nothing breaks the prayer; ward off what you can.” They understand the word “breaks” to mean a reduction in reward, not nullification. They also rely on the incident in which Zaynab bint Abī Salamah passed in front of the Prophet ﷺ and did not break his prayer, related by Aḥmad (25984) and Ibn Mājah (948) with a sound chain.

Likewise, Aḥmad and Abū Dāwūd narrate from al-Faḍl ibn al-ʿAbbās that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ once came to us in the desert. He prayed in the open plain with no sutrah before him, while one of our donkeys and a bitch were playing in front of him, and he took no notice of them.

They further argue that Satan himself once confronted the Prophet ﷺ directly in his qiblah.

Al-Nawawī said: “The majority of scholars, early and late, maintain that nothing passing in front of the worshipper invalidates the prayer, and the Prophet ﷺ never ordered anyone to repeat a prayer on that account. They interpreted the relevant reports as indicating only a diminution of the prayer because the heart is distracted by such things.”

This is also the well-known view in the Ḥanbalī school—except regarding the black dog. Al-Khiraqī and the author of al-Wajīz affirmed it; Ibn Qudāmah stated in al-Mughnī that it is the prevalent position; it was deemed correct in Taṣḥīḥ al-Furūʿ and elsewhere, and it is categorically adopted in al-Tanqīḥ, al-Iqnāʿ, al-Muntahā, and similar works.

As for the black dog, the Ḥanbalīs have only one report: it does break and invalidate the prayer.

In another report from Imām Aḥmad, he also held that a woman and a donkey break and nullify the prayer, and this is likewise the position of the Ẓāhirīs concerning all three: the woman, the donkey,