The Ruling on Eating the Donkey and Its Sweat

Question:
Honorable Shaykh Abu Hukm, may Allah grant you success, is the donkey a beast of prey, meaning its meat? And is the donkey’s sweat or its saliva?

Answer:
The donkey is forbidden to eat. As for its sweat, it is excused. If a person rides a donkey or touches it while it is sweating and the sweat sticks to his hand, this is pure and excused in order to remove hardship from people. Since donkeys are the people’s mounts and they use them for their purposes, it necessarily follows that some of their sweat will come upon them.
If it were impure, it would become a hardship for people, so Allah has excused it. Otherwise, it is impure; there is no doubt that the donkey is impure, but its sweat is pure in order to remove hardship from people. Otherwise, its urine, its dung, and its saliva are all impure.
But that is excused to make things easier for people. That is to say, if a person is affected by the donkey’s saliva or its sweat, that is excused because of that hardship for people, and he is not required to wash his garment.