This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

This is a sub-article to Hygiene in Islam, Healthy diet and Food and cooking hygiene.

Islamic dietary laws provide a set of rules as to what Muslims eat in their diet and other areas.

[edit] Overview

The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.(March 2008)

Islamic jurisprudence specifies which foods are halāl (lawful) and which are harām (unlawful). This is based on rules found in the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam. Other rules are added to these in fatwas by Mujtahids with various degrees of strictness, but they are not always held to be authoritative by all. According to the Quran, the only foods explicitly forbidden are meat from animals that die of themselves, blood, the meat of pigs, and animals dedicated to other than God.(Quran 5:3)

[edit] Healthy diet

A healthy diet is considered important in Islam, although what constitutes such might not be necessarily in consideration of Western standards. Some Muslim scholars consider an excess of eating is a sin due to an interpretation of the following verse in the Qur'an:

It is He Who produceth gardens, with trellises and without, and dates, and tilth with produce of all kinds, and olives and pomegranates, similar (in kind) and different (in variety): eat of their fruit in their season, but render the dues that are proper on the day that the harvest is gathered. But waste not by excess: for Allah loveth not the wasters. (Qur'an 6:141)

The following authentic hadith (saying of the Prophet) also states:

Man fills no vessel worse than his stomach. It is sufficient for the son of Adam to have a few mouthfuls to give him the strength he needs. If he has to fill his stomach, then let him leave one-third for food, one-third for drink and one-third for air. (Reported by al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Maajah. Saheeh al-Jaami’, 5674).

[edit] Food and cooking hygiene

Food and cooking hygiene is an important part of Islamic dietary laws.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Zabihah: Islamic slaughter

Main article: Zabihah

Zabihah is the prescribed method of ritual slaughter of all animals excluding fish and most sea-life per Islamic law. For such a method the animal must be slaughtered by a Muslim or by the People of the Book (Christian or Jew), while mentioning the name of God (Allah in Arabic). According to some fatwas, the animal must be slaughtered only by a Muslim. However, some different fatwas dispute this, and rule from the Qur'anic position, according to verse 5:5 of the Qur'an, that an animal properly slaughtered by People of the Book (Jew or a Christian) is dhabiha. Thus, many observant Muslims will accept kosher meat if dhabiha options are not available. Other main references in Qur'an include 2:173, 5:3, 5:5, 5:90, 6:118, 6:145, 16:115.

If there is doubt to anything being regarded as halāl or haram, Muslims are generally advised to refrain from consumption until clarification or permissiveness is given by another Muslim learned in Fiqh.

Animals for food may not be killed by being boiled or electrocuted, and the carcass should be hung upside down for long enough to be blood-free. Different rules apply to fish; for instance, fish with scales are always halāl, while it has been debated whether shellfish and scaleless fishes, such as catfish, are halāl, haram or makruh (prohibitively disliked).

[edit] Food certification

Due to the recent rise in Muslim populations in the United States and Europe, certain organizations have emerged that can certify dhabiha food products and ingredients for Muslim consumers. The Muslim Consumer Group is an example of an organization that places certification labels such as the H-MCG symbol to identify the dhabiha status of different edible and non-edible consumer products.

[edit] Prohibited food

Some animals and manners of death or preparation can make certain things haram to eat, that is, taboo food and drink. These include what are regarded as unclean animals.

[edit] Dead Animals

In Islam, there is a prohibition against the eating of dead animals. According to Islamic Fiqh (Jurisprudence), this includes animals that die by drowning, fire, electrocution, trauma (e.g. "roadkill"), or by boiling while alive. (Permitted) animals must be killed by conscious slaughter or by hunting to allow (the most) blood to flow. The exceptions to these rules are generally creatures from the sea, which may die while in open air.

[edit] Alcohol

In Islam, alcoholic beverages — or any intoxicant — is forbidden. Intoxicants were forbidden in the Qur'an through several separate verses revealed at different times over a period of years. At first, it was forbidden for Muslims to attend to prayers while intoxicated (4:43). Then a later verse was revealed which said that alcohol contains some good and some evil, but the evil is greater than the good (2:219). This was the next step in turning people away from consumption of it. Finally, "intoxicants and games of chance" were called "abominations of Satan's handiwork," intended to turn people away from God and forget about prayer, and Muslims were ordered to abstain (5:90-91). In Surah Al-Baqarah: 219, is states "They ask Thee concerning Wine and Gambling, Say: In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit."^[1][2]

Most Muslims avoid alcohol in any type of form, even the slight small amounts, such as used in cooking.

[edit] Blood

Eating or drinking blood and its by-products is forbidden (though blood transfusions are an exception).

[edit] Carnivores

Consumption of carnivores is prohibited. However, piscivorous animals (animals that consume only fish), are not considered carnivorous.^[3]

[edit] Omnivores

Consumption of omnivores, such as pigs, monkeys, humans and dogs, is prohibited.

[edit] Pork

Pork and products made from pork are strictly forbidden from consumption and handling in Islam.

[edit] Gelatin

Gelatin made from porcine skin or bones, which makes up roughly 50% of the supply of gelatin on the market is forbidden.

Gelatin made from other animals, for example, fish, is acceptable. Kosher gelatin comes from certain fish to avoid the Kashrut prohibition against mixing meat (fish is not considered meat) and dairy in the same meal. Therefore, gelatin in food items certified as Kosher is halāl, as it is from fish. However, it is typical to use algal sources of thickeners, in the home or in commercial products, to ensure they are halāl.

[edit] See also

• Halaal
• Makruh
• Difference between Halal and Dhabiha
• Comparison of Dhabiĥa Halal and kashrut
• Dietary laws
• Muslim Consumer Group (MCG)
• Kashrut
• Hechsher

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/spot_full_story.asp?service_id=693
• Laws of Islam concerning food
• List of probably / possibly Haram Ingredients
• Is conventional meat Halal/Zabiha? Green Zabiha