Asia-Pacific News
Muslim leaders endorse guide dogs in Australia
Sep 24, 2009, 8:14 GMT
Sydney - Twenty-five leaders of Australia's 350,000-strong Islamic community visited a Brisbane school for guide dogs Thursday to show blind Muslims that there was no religious prohibition against companion animals.
The groundbreaking visit was organized by Guide Dogs Queensland and came after complaints that Muslim taxi drivers were refusing to allow seeing eye dogs in their cabs.
'If a person has a dog for a valid reason there's no problem at all,' Islamic Council of Queensland spokesman Imam Mohammed Akram Buksh said. 'God Almighty has created the dog and without a doubt this certain breed has changed many things in many people's lives and is a great benefit in society.'
Helping arrange the visit to the training school was dog handler Bashir Ebrahim, himself a Muslim. He said that he knew of only one blind Muslim who had a guide dog.
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