Even as a notorious Islamophobe, I confess to a certain admiration for the way Islam gets you coming and going. You may have noticed in recent years various foot-of-the-page news stories about Muslim cabbies at Minneapolis Airport refusing to allow seeing-eye dogs in their taxis, or a dispute between Dutch dog-walkers and a local mosque, or a mysterious spate of dog poisonings in heavily Muslim parts of Catalonia, or the decision by the British police to make sniffer dogs wear booties to avoid offending Muslims, or Anwar Sadat’s daughter suing Dreamworks for naming a dog after her father in the film I Love You, Man, or the introduction of the seeing-eye horse for blind Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. And you might have concluded, as a sensitive multicultural type, that Muslims aren’t quite so keen on man’s best friend as your average infidel.
More fool you. The French actress Marie Laforêt made that careless assumption and, as a result, she’s now on trial:
72-year-old Laforêt, who first found fame as an actress in the 1960s, placed an ad on an internet site looking for someone to carry out some work on her terrace in 2009, reported daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday.
She specified in the ad that “people with allergies or orthodox Muslims” should not apply “due to a small chihuahua.”
Laforêt claimed that she made the stipulation because she believed the Muslim faith saw dogs as unclean.
Perish the thought!
Experts in the Muslim faith were quoted as rejecting the defence.
“Dogs are not considered unclean and it’s false to suggest otherwise,” said one quoted by the newspaper.
Did the Council on American-Islamic Relations get that memo? Or the Ayatollah Khomeini? Or is it only French actresses who get hauled into court for having the temerity to “suggest otherwise”?
I’m no “expert in the Muslim faith,” but surely one reason Muslims don’t keep dogs is because so many infidels are eager to be their poodles.