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Seafood - Which seafood is Halal?

Octopus-Crab-Clam-Oysters-Shell-Fish-Scallop-Squid

Answer:

May you be in the best of health and imaan.. Ameen.

It is true that when you look at Quran it is very much simplified that seafood ingeneral is made halal but when you look at the opinions of the scholars, you find thatthere is a difference of opinion.Let's see the ayah that talks about seafood ( or shall I say, the ayah that is given as aproof that all sea-creatures are allowed for consumption):

Translation: Lawful to you is the pursuit of water-game and its use for food,- forthe benefit of yourselves and those who travel; but forbidden is the pursuit of land-game;- as long as ye are in the sacred precincts or in pilgrim garb. And fear Allah, to

Whom ye shall be gathered back. (Abdullah Yusuf Ali)

Based on this ayah, it is usually interpreted that Allah SWT has made all creatures inthe ocean halal. The words that are used '...Sayd ul Bahr Wa Ta'aamuhu' whichmeans 'Lawful is made unto you hunting in sea and its food...'.

SAYD UL BAHRSayd can be translated in two different forms - Literally meaning hunting orfiguratively meaning hunted animal.So if we try to translate ayah based on these two meanings we will get:1)Lawful is made for you sea-hunting and its food. (literal)

2) Lawful is made for you sea-animal and sea-food. (figurative)

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In the usool of fiqh, one cannot abandon the literal meaning at the expense of afigurative meaning without a valid daleel. In this particular case, scholars of Hanafischool have adhered to the literal meaning, that is 'Lawful is made for you sea-hunting and its food'.

The reason for adhering to the literal meaning is because of the second part of theayah. The meaning of the complete ayah is:

Translation (5:96):Lawful to you is (the pursuit of) water game and its use for food for the benefit of

yourselves and those who travel, but forbidden is (the pursuit of) land game as longas you are in a state of Ihrm (for Hajj or 'Umrah). And fear Allh to Whom you shall

be gathered back.

It should be noted that this ayah is talking about the people who are in Ahraam (Pilgrimage garb) and Shariah decrees that during the state of ahraam, one is

permissible to hunt in the sea while it is unlawful to hunt on the land and thereforewe see in the ayah that the context of Saydul Bahr (hunting in sea) flows into thecontext of Saydul Barr (hunting on land) and the meaning of the ayah becomes:

Hunting of sea animals is halaal for a muhrim (one in ahraam) while hunting of wildanimals on land is unlawful for him.

If we take the figurative meaning, the meaning of the ayah will become:

Sea-animals are halaal for a muhrim while wild animals on land are unlawful to him.

But this is not true. We know that a person in ahraam is allowed to eat the halal wildanimal meat as long as he has not hunted that animal himself or was not involved inhunting or catching the animal. This proves that we ought to stick with the literalmeaning in this ayah and not the figurative (or interpreted) meaning.

WA TA'AAMUHU

Wa Ta'aamuhu - meaning its food.

We read and hear that when it is said 'its food' , it means all the creatures in theocean and not just the fish. To support this argument, often a hadeeth is quoted from

Rasulallah SAW that:'It's (the ocean's) water is pure and its carrion (the dead) are halaal."

Based on this hadeeth it is said that anything that is found in sea is halaal for us. Butif one sees the hadeeth of the Rasulallah SAW where he specifically mentions thecarrions being halaal for us, one would see that infact here carrion means only fish.

Rasulallah SAW is reported to have said:"Two carrions are made Halaal for us; Fish and Locust" [ Mishkaat Vol 2:P361]

It means that fish and locust are the only two animals/insects that do not need to beslaughtered. So Rasulallah SAW gave us the explanation of the carrion being halaal

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restricted only to fish and not the sea animals in general.

Another hadeeth that is often quoted to prove that all animals in sea are halaal is:

"Everything in ocean is Madhbooh (slaughtered)." [Bukhari]

In the book Fathul Bari, we see with strong chains of narrations that Umar RA andAli RA said:"All fish are slaughtered already by Allah SWT"

So again it was clarified by the Sahaba that when it came to understanding of lawfulfrom sea, it was only fish that was meant as lawful.

Wallahualam.

Note: The references for this article are from the fatwas of Mufti Ebrahim Desai ,

Madrassah Innamiyah, South Africa.

What I understand from the evidences given by Mufti Ebrahim is that only fish is

acceptable as Halal and nothing other than fish is allowed for consumption as per

the hanafi school of jurisprudence.

However, there are other hanafi scholars who also accept sea food, other than fish,

to be makruh.

According to Shafii, maliki and hanbali school of jurisprudence, all sea food is

Halal and consumable.According to the Hanbaliy and Shafi'ee scholars, all living creatures that live in the

sea are halal, whether they are in the form of a fish or not. (Fiqh alal Madhaahib

al-Arbaa). Based on this, oyster, oyster extract, shrimp, lobster and shark are all

halal and permissible.

According to the Maliki scholars, every living creature of the sea is halal except

eel. (Ibid) Hence, oyster, oyster extract, shrimp, lobster and shark are halal and

permissible.

According to the Hanafi scholars, the only living creatures of the sea that are

permissible are those that are in the form of a fish with an exception of the hagfish

and eel. (Ibid). (these 2 even though they are not in the form of a fish they will be

permissible to consume).

Hence, according to the Hanafi scholars, it will not be permissible to eat oyster,

oyster extract, shrimp and lobsters. It will be permissible to consume shark as it is

in the form of a fish.