Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Question and Context — 0:00
Uh the next question we have um brother um hope i pronounced that correctly uh brother ashfar emails and says that he has been told that eating shrimp and squid is not allowed and so he is saying well how come some muslims eat it and some muslims don't eat it um oh so this is a very nice succulent juicy question i'm not going to joke about seafood because i see food and i like seafood but i'm not going to joke about that even though i just did uh when i go answer.
The question very simplistically dear brother in islam the majority of medhabs allow all types of animals that come from the ocean and this is something that the maliki school the hambali school and the shafiri school is very explicit on that these three methods they say anything that lives in the ocean permanently we're not talking about that which is half ocean half water anything that is predominantly in the water by ocean we mean even rivers and lakes any body of water any animal that its primary existence is in the water according.
To these three men hubs they are allowed unconditionally unless there's a poison in it that will harm you unless there's something in it that's going to physically harm you otherwise every animal from the water is allowed and the beauty of this is that by unanimous consensus all the madhhab say that you do not need to slaughter such an animal you do not need to you know find it alive and then cut it like you have to do to the hunted animals no you may find it you know dead you may.
Catch it and simply take it out of the water and its death is its uh proper procedure for slaughtering and so simply by taking the fish out of the water whoever does so and that's why even if you restrict the biha you may eat seafood wherever you go because it doesn't matter who caught it how it was caught all seafood is the default is that it is now what is the evidence that these uh scholars say about this issue what is the evidence that all seafood is halal so they have.
A number of evidences primarily there's a famous hadith and a famous or reverse of the quran surat al-maidah verse 96 allah says in the quran that the catch of the ocean notice the wording used you throw a net into the ocean and you take that net out that is so allah is saying that the catch of the ocean all of it is permitted for you and also even for the one in now the one in iran cannot hunt you should know this that when you do hajj on umrah and you.
Wear the you are not allowed to go hunt animals however allah allows the ocean traveler if you if you're in a haram and you're in the ocean right so you're going from india to a hajj let's say right uh and you are in the ocean you're allowed to hunt fish and you're allowed to eat anything that comes from the water so allah is saying that all of this is permitted uh for you so the scholars say when allah said the catch of the ocean this means any animal that lives in.
The water it is halal for us and so this includes shrimps and squids and eels and octopus and all types of animals it is exceptions now there is also a hadith uh reported in abu dhabi that somebody asked the prophet sallallahu wasallam about the doing wudu from ocean water it's salty water right can you do from ocean water and our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that its water is from and it's dead anything that you find dead it is permitted for you to eat okay you don't even have to catch.
It alive if you find it dead in the ocean it just had out for you to eat so notice he said the dead of the ocean he did not say the fish of the ocean he said anything caught in the ocean and uh that is why we have explicit statements from many of the scholars of islam even the great giants imami for example said everything that lives in.
Core Ruling and Evidence — 4:56
The ocean is edible everything without exception that lives in the ocean is edible even if you find it floating dead you know on the top of the the water you may take it no problem because he said the quran in sunnah is very explicit on this point and this is the inshallah the correct position is the position i follow and it is the one that the evidences support very clearly therefore according to that position anything from the ocean and that includes uh seafood and shrimp and squid and octopus and anything.
That comes from the ocean lobsters all of this would be completely permissible now what is the dissenting opinion the dissenting opinion is the hanafi school the hanafi school and the hanefe school is not explicit on this point there are multiple positions even within the hanafi school and this is something that many modern hanafis are not aware of except if you're you know the scholars well are are familiar with this but within the hanafi school you have both of these opinions out there and so for example al qasani in his famous.
Book and i spoke about this book in a previous lecture and i mentioned the story of it's some writing now which is a very interesting story al qasani he says that the verse of the quran that the catch of the ocean is halal and the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi it's dead is halal he said that it only applies to samak or fish and he has his evidences where he brings it you know they have their their way of basically restricting so al-qassani argues that we should not look at.
This verse and this hadith as unconditional rather when our prophet salallahu is saying that it's dead is halal he means it's fish or and when allah is saying that the catch of the ocean is halal he means the fish is halal and everything besides fish according to cassani would not be allowed and that is why he and others would say that shrimp and prawns and other by the way shrimps and prawns is there a difference between the two it depends on which you ask which which scientists you ask and some.
Say prawns is a type of shrimp and some say prawns and shrimps are exactly the same and technically speaking prawns is a category there's over 70 varieties of shrimp yes i've done my research and one of them is basically a type is one category where in genus is called prawns point is that uh al-qassani and others would say only fish is halal and anything else that is not fish including shrimps including lobsters uh would be uh now is it haram no no hanafi scholar says it is haram rather they say.
Either okay because again the hanafi's have their their categories they would say it's makru either strongly or mildly and if it's strongly macro they would say therefore it's a it's a bit of a sin to eat if it's slightly makru there is no sin to eat it but it is better to avoid it so that's the difference between and of the evidences that the hanafi's used as well is the verse in the quran that that which is filthy is forbidden the khabib is forbidden and they say that shrimp and lobsters.
Are khabib or filthy that we should not eat them and the response is who gets to define what is habit and what is filthy and what is not filthy and the majority of other you know civilizations and scholars and madhhab's they don't view these creatures to be filthy at all so the notion goes for example you will find this in some fat was that oh the shrimp it is like the insects or the vermins of the ocean and the response to this is that well i mean who said it's that.
Type of like i mean who is going to make this comparison uh in the end of the day when allah has said the catch of the ocean is halal and when the prophet saw says anything that's coming from the ocean even if his dead is then we should stick with that and there is no problem in and by the way what is also proven in this is that the.
Practical Guidance and Caveats — 8:55
The the hanafi school says that fish is permitted and by fish they don't mean the scientific term fish because by unanimous consensus a whale is permissible to eat we know this because the processor himself ate one we know this because it's hadith that the sahaba were on the shores of the ocean and the dead whale you know they found a dead whale and they cut it up and they ate it and they brought some meat back to medina and the prophet saw himself ate from that it was a whale now.
Technically a fish is not a whale a whale is not a fish a whale is a mammal and yet it is allowed to eat and the hanafees also say this so uh therefore when when they say fish is allowed the hanafi say this the response comes who gets to define a fish and that is why even many modern hanafis and even some early ones as well they are saying that look when the when the the the scholars say fish what they mean is an animal of the ocean it's not the.
Biological definition of a fish and uh the darun ifta of egypt which is the senior most fatwa council of egypt and the egypt has a long tradition of hanafi scholarship the ifta of egypt they gave a fatwa in which they said that shrimps should be considered a type of fish samak they said and they gave the fatwa that it should be allowed even according to the hanafi method and their hanafi's in that council as well however you should know that the official fatwa of the ulum of deoband india which is.
Of course the main the resource of our indian pakistani bengali brethren of the bundy school that the room official fatwa is that eating shrimp is makru tanzihi that it is something that should be avoided but it is not sinful if you eat so that's the double room fatwa there say that no problem samak is included in that um as well and um uh you you will find even many modern hanafi scholars uh and i have many hanafi friends mufti's of the hanavi medhab and they have told me that in their.
Opinion uh the medhab does not prohibit uh it does not make makuruta and therefore they give the fatwa publicly that according to the hanafi method you should be allowed but you should be aware that there are dissenting voices and it is up to you what you want to do but if you ask me to me it is crystal clear that there is no evidence to forbid these these items and in fact the quran is very clear and it is the vast majority position of the ummah and also even within the.
Hanafi school we find many ulama that have that have explicitly allowed this and by the way another point that demonstrates this is that some of our early hanafi scholars they explicitly mentioned the eel and they said the eel is halal to eat for example right and the eel is not a fish in the sense that it is you know the way that it is a fish right so uh and you'll find this even in uh um and others that they explicitly mention that uh the the fish called al-marmahi al-marmahi which.
Is basically the eel they said that this is allowed now why would the eel be allowed and it is not to fish in the technical sense and the whale is allowed and it's not to fish in the technical sense and then other animals that are also the so anyway that's uh you know internal discussion amongst the medivh it's not my my place to tell them what to say what not to say i will simply state you're asking me the position that uh i would advise you and i would say it's.
Not a problem uh if you eat this and it is the majority position of our uh scholars and if you choose to follow uh the position of the one that is also fine and permissible and insha allah it is a matter that both positions and allah azza knows best and with that inshallah we come to the conclusion of today's q a and i will see you inshallah next weekend.