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Othan Than Pigs, Are All Other Animals Halal?
If we follow just the Quran, only pig is Haram and thus all other animals, birds or fish are halal.
Is there a Sunnah or a very strong Hadith defining that only vegetation eating animals are halal?
If that is the case then why Elephant may not be halal?
If only domesticated animals are halal, then why donkey is not halal?
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8 Replies
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Othan Than Pigs, Are All Other Animals Halal?
updated 2 weeks, 4 days ago
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PLease see Discussion 51995
Please also read Discussion 47843 • Reply 47886
ask.ghamidi.org
Identifying Khabeeth Animals - Ask Ghamidi
Some people don’t find lions or tigers disgusting. If I’m frank even I don’t really see anything wrong for eating. Maybe that’s because I’ve never been
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Thank you, brother Ahsan, for your response but I feel like I didn’t find answer to my question.
Many times, and in this case too, the references goes into a rabbit hole and do not directly answer the question. May I suggest to provide a summary answer and then provide links for further information.
Thank you.
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Dear Nadeem,
The distinction between halal and haram animals in the Qur’an, jurisprudentially speaking, is based on the distinction between beastliness/predation of prey and grazing animals. Thereby, all animals that are beastly in nature, prey on other animals, tear the flesh and blood of other animals apart like lions, tigers, dogs, are by application of the jurisprudential principle, haram.
Animals that graze on grass or other plants, shrubs, bushes are halal for man to eat in the name of God. Like cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats among other examples.
In the case of direct prohibitions as to a specific animal, flesh and blood of pig is disallowed to Muslims specifically; solely because of the reason that humans, in their narrow perception, could have easily construed the pig as a ‘charinda’ or grazing animal, which it is, to some extent, but rarely has it been seen that a pig has hesitated from consuming meat of animals, even hunting large prey (in the case of wild boars) and thus, it became necessary for God, in his infinite wisdom, to clarify whether the pig is permissible or not, based on the aforementioned principle.
In the case of fish, the Lord has permitted us to pursue all water-game. Thereby, all fish are by virtue of God’s decree are halal. Except those that are found dead on the sea surface, for those are prohibited by God in the Qur’an (“forbidden to you is dead meat”).
In the case of the elephant, you may have heard that all animals with fangs and talons are prohibited, what you may be suprised to know, is that the prohibition on animals with regards to their fangs and talon is to the extent of the animals using them for hunting and preying (beastliness), thereby making them proscribed. In the case of the elephant, it has large tusks, although not used for hunting or preying, so it may be considered halal, to the best of my knowledge.
In the case of donkeys, there is difference of opinion, but the prominent position is that the wild donkeys like onager and kulan are permissible. Domesticated donkeys, in accordance with a hadith reported from the Prophet, may be proscribed or prohibitively disliked, but we cannot say for sure, since it’s only a hadith and no jurisprudential injunction can be extracted or reasoned from hadith, except as corroborative evidence of the injunctions in the Qur’an.
I truly hope this answers your questions.
For more in the same context, read Surah Al Maidah, translated into English.
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Thank you Mr. Abid for a detailed answer. I will read it carefully and look into the source of information. I am not looking for a reasoning to eat all kinds of animals but I am just curious how Quran is interpretted and how various things are decided. To me it seems like except for pig all other animals are either Halal or in the grey area, but nothing is a directly prohibited or a grave sin to consume.
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The view that the pig is the centre of prohibition in the Qur’an is wrong.
A black and white distinction in terms of hillat/hurmat has been done by God, not limited to the pig but any animal not falling under ‘tayyabat’.
The classification as to what is ‘tayyab’ and what is ‘khabith’, has to be based on the ‘A Priori knowledge principle’ – the idea that God has deposited, within you, the consciousness of right and wrong, bad and God, dirty and pure etc; requiring only an environment to bloom.
The nafs is pre-fitted and equipped upon birth to distinguish good and bad, right and wrong, polluted and pure among other extremes of human experience and subjective collective consciousness.
To come back to the original question, since khabaith are proscribed, the principle to be followed here is that of analogical reasoning (qiyas) to determine the grounds on which the pig was prohibited and in effect, all other animals related to the category described above. Just as long as the illah’ of the ruling is followed, the distinction between prohibited stuff and halal stuff becomes plain as day. This is how the Qur’an is interpreted: as a matter of fact, you would be suprised to know that most of the major nations in the world having Islamic populations and the concept of personal law actually consider ‘qiyas’ to be source of law (including India), equivalent to the Glorious word of God and the Sunnah in terms of interdependent equivalence of jurisprudential value.
Thank you.
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@Sonnadi Nadeem Bhai, The notion that “other than Pig all other are halal or grey areas” is a problematic notion because. The Quranic command of eating Tayyibaat (pure) is present.
and according to ghamidi Sahab this is the base criterion of food selection. that’s is why there’s no explicit command present to Not consume urine and faeces. because human nature is well aware that this is repulsive, impure and inappropriate for use. the same goes for beastly natured animals they also have been considered impure and inappropriate for human consumptions by general human societies and people understand the gradual very slow, over the generations, negative effects of consuming beastly animal over the human soul. on the other hand, soft grazing animals, have been considered appropriate meat for human consumption by human nature.
now comes those things which are in grey areas that seem to have shades of both beastly and grazing animal nature. Pig, according to biological make up of feet, it belongs to grazing animal species family. but according to it’s facial structures it has canines (characteristic of beastly, meat tearing nature. canines help tear the meat). and according to it’s eating habits it eats meat in a beastly fashion. So here what aspect should be given preference?? Here is where humans at general, were at a risk of falling into error, so here Allah gave his verdict that it must also be considered impure.
An interesting fact : those christians who abolished their Shariah after Saint Paul. were agreed on the fact that shariah was for bani Israel and not those christians belonging to non-bani Israel. even then they didn’t started eating all animals. but the Pig was readily consumed in their diets! a point to ponder.
There are many lectures of ghamidi Sahab on these principles
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Thank you Brother Abid and Mr. Mohammad. The reason I stated that all other animals are in the grey area, because unlike a pig, no other animal is explicitly stated in the Quran to be Haram. Also as you stated and many have argued in this forum, that the concept of Pure or Unpure is subjective. I don’t see how it is inbuilt in our minds since birth. Based on the culture a person is born in, the concept of what is pure or unpure changes. And since most of the world believes in Ibrahimic religions, normally the concept that vegetation eating animals are halal is very prevalent.
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Even among non-Abrahamic communities, there is a general aversion to consuming animals that followers of Abrahamic religions also avoid eating. Eating animals like dogs or frogs is not widespread; such practices are rare and often associated with high costs. This suggests that human nature, in most cases, instinctively guides people toward avoiding certain animals as food. This realm of dietary choices reflects prohibitions influenced by natural instincts—an area that is somewhat grey but not entirely so.
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