Lawful (halal) and unlawful (haram) foods

The fiqh of foods rests on one basic rule and a list of prohibitions named by the texts. The encyclopedia presents both, noting for each category the agreement or divergence of the schools.

The starting rule: silence is a pardon

What Allah has made lawful is lawful, what He has made unlawful is unlawful, and what He has remained silent about is pardoned.reported from Ibn Abbas in Tafsir al-Qurtubi

The Quran states the rule: « Say: I find nothing in what has been revealed to me forbidden to eat for one who wishes to eat it, except carrion, poured-out blood or the flesh of swine » (al-An'am 145). Aisha invoked this same verse about the mouse: « it is not forbidden ». The principle that follows, repeated throughout the encyclopedia: what has not been named forbidden keeps its original permissibility.

The prohibitions named by the texts

The sources converge on the core: carrion, poured-out blood and pork (al-Baqara 173 ; al-An'am 145). Blood is unanimous: the scholars declare it forbidden and impure, whether drunk or otherwise used. Added to these are fanged predatory beasts and taloned birds of prey, based on the hadiths:

The Messenger of Allah forbade eating every fanged beast of prey.al-Bukhari 5210 ; Muslim 1932-1934

These last two categories carry a divergence: the Malikis apply no prohibition to any bird, relying on Abu Bakr's word: « all birds, every one of them », and on the Quran's silence.

The animals of the sea

The basis is the verse: « lawful to you is the game of the sea and its food » (al-Ma'ida 96) and the hadith: « its water is purifying, its dead is lawful ». The majority (Malikis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis) derives from them the lawfulness of everything living in the sea; the Hanafis restrict it to fish proper, excluding what floats dead.

The animals of the land

For game and livestock, the rule fits in two lines of the encyclopedia: every land animal not among the named prohibitions remains lawful, and no living being may be taken as a target for shooting or killed without use: the Prophet cursed whoever takes a living creature as a target, and the animal must be slaughtered or hunted according to the rules set out in the following pages.

Practical note

The detailed lists (donkey, horse, hyena, insects, birds of prey) fill the next page; the present outline sets the grid: text named, forbidden; text silent, permitted.