Sea creatures: fish, crustaceans and seafood

What lives in the sea enjoys its own regime: no slaughter, and a principle of lawfulness laid down by the Quran. The schools draw different consequences for the species.

The jumhur's position

Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis start from 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 Malikis conclude the lawfulness of everything living in the sea, including its species resembling forbidden land animals, such as the sea dog and the sea pig, since the generality of the verse covers them and none requires slaughter. Shafi'is distinguish: everything of fish shape is lawful like it, alive or dead; for what differs from it (crab, turtle, frog), their school carries three views, the soundest maintaining the lawfulness of all; water birds, for their part, live also on land and require slaughter without divergence.

The Hanafi position

The Hanafis restrict lawfulness to fish, all kinds included, and forbid the rest: crab, turtle, frog, sea pig and sea dog, under the verse of « evil things » (al-A'raf 157): what is not fish is repugnant in their reading. They likewise exclude the fish that floats dead, as stated on the previous page.

The fish dead in the water

What the sea casts onto the shore, eat it; what dies in the water and floats, do not eat it.Abu Dawud 3815 (report judged weak)

On this floating fish (tafi), the Hanafis rely on this hadith; the majority renders it lawful on the strength of al-Ma'ida 96 and the words of Abu Bakr and Umar reported by al-Bukhari. The firm point of agreement: non-floating fish is lawful for all, and the fish cast up by the sea likewise.

Practical note

The seafood table therefore crosses two zones: the majority extends the verse's rule to everything coming from the sea; the Hanafi school holds fish alone. Each follows the school he adheres to, the divergence being ancient and documented on both sides.