The hidden heartbreak of losing a pet in Singapore and Malaysia

Growing up in a Malay family in Singapore, Hafeez Hassan feared dogs. He never expected to mourn one like a sibling.

“Maybe that is what I have been grieving all along … The experience of loving something that I was taught I was not supposed to love,” he said.

Even as an adult, walking his former partner’s husky Pieces in public made Hafeez anxious that a relative might see him, or that he might be judged for being close to an animal whose saliva and waste are regarded as ritually impure by many Muslims in the region.

Touching or holding a dog is not sinful, according to the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore. Though it did note in a 2014 advisory that other schools of Islamic jurisprudence had different views on dogs.