The sale of dogs

The report is produced as self-evidently absurd, with no argument attached. That is the whole of the objection, and it is worth noticing that no criterion is ever supplied.

The report

Al-Bukhari records, in vol. 3, book 34, no. 299, that the Prophet forbade the acceptance of the price of a dog, and also forbade the profession of tattooing and the receiving or giving of riba (usury).

The coherence

Islam discourages the keeping of dogs as household pets, on grounds of ritual purity that are consistent across the tradition. A prohibition on trading in dogs follows directly from that discouragement, and it functions to give the discouragement practical effect. Whatever one makes of the underlying position, the ruling is coherent with it. It is not a stray absurdity, and it is not arbitrary.

The burden

The objection names no standard by which the report is nonsense. It offers no principle, identifies no contradiction, and points to no internal inconsistency. It asserts, and expects the assertion to do the work.

The word “nonsense” is not an argument. It is a way of skipping one. A reader is entitled to ask by what criterion the ruling has been judged, and to notice that no answer is forthcoming.