Seafood

[repenter-gone4awhile]

13 hours ago, ema said:

I don't believe in hadith abrogating quran, and I don't take hadith that is contradicting Quran.
The hadith seems fine since it merely saying not to eat unscaled fish.
Octopus, Squid, Sea Urchin, caviar and etc are NOT fish. So it does not matter having scale or not.
I know Iran exports caviar and I believe they don't export haram things for others to eat.

Quran says,

Say, "I do not find within that which was revealed to me [anything] forbidden to one who would eat it unless it be a dead animal or blood spilled out or the flesh of swine - for indeed, it is impure - or it be [that slaughtered in] disobedience, dedicated to other than Allah . But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], then indeed, your Lord is Forgiving and Merciful." 6:145

Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah , and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin - then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. 5:3

So monkey, hyena, cat, rat and Rhino is halal too....according to your judgement and understanding of the Quran? 

[ema]

EL King, according to your link, it says, “the word "caviar" is exclusively reserved for sturgeon roe.” That means you are not allow to sell any other fish eggs and trying to pass it as caviar,  or, you have to say it is imitation or substitute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviar

Ikura (salmon roe), Tarako (walleye pollack), mentaiko (cod roe), kazunoko (herring roe), tobiko (flyingfish roe), and masago and ebiko (smelt roe), those everyday fish eggs cannot be called caviar and sold under such pretense. Each has very different size, color, and taste.

EL King, your link says “Most of the Sunni schools of fiqh allow most of the sea food. The Shi`a school, on the other hand, allows only the scale-fish, prawns and shrimps.”

https://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00283.html

So caviar is not allowed according to your link.

What other points were you going to make from the link?

[ema]

To notme’s quote: “Are the bony scutes on sturgeon considered scales? I'm guessing no, since sturgeon are bottom feeders.”

Please read the following from the link below.

 

“On September 27, 1981, one specimen each of the three varieties of sturgeon were taken to Khomeini’s office in Qom (the center of the Shiite clergy of Iran), and Shilat officials asked that it be made clear whether the three fish could be consumed inside Iran. There, on September 28, four clerics, Ja’far Karimi, Azari Qomi, Rasti Kashani, and Abtahi, had a close look at the fish and found that near the tail as well as “under and near” the fins they had an extra covering in the form of appendages, which, they concluded, was sufficient proof that the sturgeon had scales, there being no a priori geometric form that extra coverings of fish must have in order to qualify as “scales.” Upon being informed that there was no impediment to fishing for these three types of sturgeon and trading in them, Khomeini was asked for a fatwa, and he wrote: “If it has scales, even if it is in the region of the tail, it is halal.” On May 12, Shilat officials wrote letters to experts and asked them to give their scientific views on the matter. The collected views were then sent to Sadeq Ehsanbakhsh, Khomeini’s representative for Gilan province and leader of Friday prayers in Gilan’s capital, Rasht, to whom the matter was referred by both Khomeini and Grand Ayatollah Golpayegani. Proceedings were slowed down somewhat when an assassination attempt injured Ehsanbakhsh, but after his convalescence he convened a seminar to finalize the new policy. On February 5, 1983, clerics from Qom, Tehran, and the two Caspian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, as well as university professors, fishermen, and representatives of the local population, met in Bandar Anzali, the main port city of Gilan, and “most of the brothers present” gave written testimony that the fish had scales. The minutes of the seminar and the individual testimonies of the fisheries experts were shown to Khomeini, who was again asked for a fatwa. Below the request he wrote: “On the matter of the fishes in question, the views of trustworthy experts are valid, and should be acted upon.” A new document was now prepared, containing the fatwa and the individual testimonies, and this was made public by Ehsanbakhsh. On September 5, radio and television reported the news, as did newspapers on September 6.”

http://www.gastronomica.org/how-caviar-turned-out-to-be-halal/

According to the article above, the fatwah overrode traditional view that sturgeon has been haram fish from the Imams that to qualify as fals, scales must be detachable from the fish’s flesh without tearing bits of it out.

 

And your (notme) other quote of “By this reasoning, sea invertebrates would fall into the categories of bugs or worms. Are bugs and worms halal to eat?”

If you use that analogy, then fish is closest to reptiles on ground with scales, and being vertebrae poikilotherm. So comparing with bugs and worm as equivalent to sea invertebrates does now work.

You might want to ask why I look so much into seafood matter? For us, seafood is as common, essential, everyday food as cheese to you. You will be analyzing such ruling very diligently if cheese was at stake as Iranians overturned traditional ruling on sturgeon.

[Sumerian]

27 minutes ago, ema said:

EL King, according to your link, it says, “the word "caviar" is exclusively reserved for sturgeon roe.” That means you are not allow to sell any other fish eggs and trying to pass it as caviar,  or, you have to say it is imitation or substitute.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviar

 

Ikura (salmon roe), Tarako (walleye pollack), mentaiko (cod roe), kazunoko (herring roe), tobiko (flyingfish roe), and masago and ebiko (smelt roe), those everyday fish eggs cannot be called caviar and sold under such pretense. Each has very different size, color, and taste.

 

EL King, your link says “Most of the Sunni schools of fiqh allow most of the sea food. The Shi`a school, on the other hand, allows only the scale-fish, prawns and shrimps.”

 

https://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00283.html

 

So caviar is not allowed according to your link.

 

What other points were you going to make from the link?

 

In Arabic countries, we refer to eggs of fish such as salmon as caviar. I am not here to give a scientific definition, just read what I said: 

Quote

 

Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian and Black Sea^[2] (Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga caviars). Depending on the country, caviar may also be used to describe the roe of other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish,^[3] carp,^[4] and other species of sturgeon.

Read this fatwa: 

Quote

Question: What is the ruling regarding caviar eggs?

Answer: If it is from fish that has scales, then no problem.

السؤال: ما هو حكم أكل بيض الكافيار؟

.الجواب: اذا كان سمكه من ذوات الفلس فلا بأس

 

 

Edited September 30, 2016 by E.L King

[Sumerian]

If you want to stick to your scientific definition of caviar, yes it is haram. But I am just referring to it based on custom. Fish with scales and their eggs, prawns and shrimps, are the only seafood allowed. The rest is haram, according to the famous opinion of scholars. 

Hope I made myself clear once and for all.

Edited September 30, 2016 by E.L King

[ema]

12 minutes ago, E.L King said:

If you want to stick to your scientific definition of caviar, yes it is haram. But I am just referring to it based on custom. Fish with scales and their eggs, prawns and shrimps, are the only seafood allowed. The rest is haram, according to the famous opinion of scholars. 

Hope I made myself clear once and for all.

You missed the whole posting. Please pay attention. Definition of scale by science, sturgeon has ganoid scales instead of the permitted ctenoid and cycloid scales.

However, traditionally, religious scholars of Judaism and Shia deemed sturgeon as unscaled fish.

Until Khomeini issued fatwah in 1981 that overrode traditional view that sturgeon as haram fish from the Imams that to qualify as fals, scales must be detachable from the fish’s flesh without tearing bits of it out.

The sources are already posted in previous postings of mine.

[notme]

@ema I read something a long time back about fish with bony plates that are not true scales from a scientific perspective being halal to eat. Definitely if sturgeon is halal to consume, it's caviar also is. 

(Aside: I've never eaten caviar. Does it taste like eggs, like fish, or something else?)

As for sea invertebrates, shrimp and prawns are halal, and all others are not. I don't know why. Every now and then when they are abundant in local shops I miss being able to eat scallops, (I converted to Islam 12 years ago) but most of the time I don't think about it. If this is a matter of great importance to you, definitely find all the fatwas, hadith, and Quran verses on the subject until you are satisfied with the answer. 

[Sumerian]

10 minutes ago, ema said:

You missed the whole posting. Please pay attention. Definition of scale by science, sturgeon has ganoid scales instead of the permitted ctenoid and cycloid scales.

However, traditionally, religious scholars of Judaism and Shia deemed sturgeon as unscaled fish.

Until Khomeini issued fatwah in 1981 that overrode traditional view that sturgeon as haram fish from the Imams that to qualify as fals, scales must be detachable from the fish’s flesh without tearing bits of it out.

The sources are already posted in previous postings of mine.

I already know that, and if you pay attention, this is why I said "the famous opinion".

If you follow Sayyed Al-Khomeini you are free to eat caviar from sturgeon. However, all the other things you mentioned regarding octopus, squid, shark and what not, are all haram according to all alive scholars as far as I have seen, and also according to the scholars you mentioned in your previous post.

. 

Hope I made myself clear now lol

[ema]

EL King, As we have seen, opinions of scholars often changes over time.

That is why we should never forget to use quran as our first source, and examine and analyze any fatwah or rulings that interfere with our lives, health, or pursuit of knowledge and truth. 

[Sumerian]

12 minutes ago, ema said:

EL King, As we have seen, opinions of scholars often changes over time.

That is why we should never forget to use quran as our first source, and examine and analyze any fatwah or rulings that interfere with our lives, health, or pursuit of knowledge and truth. 

That is correct. And I never argued against that. 

[ema]

23 hours ago, E.L King said:

Sadly for you, you are not a Faqih. You are not one who determines what is halal or not.

 

23 hours ago, E.L King said:

You think these Fuqaha don't understand the Holy Qur'an?

From those comments, it seemed you were against efforts of anyone to analyze, think and questioning fatwah or rulings...

[Sumerian]

6 minutes ago, ema said:

 

From those comments, it seemed you were against efforts of anyone to analyze, think and questioning fatwah or rulings...

I am not against understanding of fatwas, otherwise I wouldn't have posted the hadith at the start, I would have simply posted a fatwa. There's a difference between being a student and wanting to be a teacher, what you did was you wanted to challenge those fatwas, not question or analyse them.

In any case, I hope the laws regarding seafood were made clear. 

[ema]

E.L. King, What made clear by you is you have very little knowledge on seafood. And you have no idea about the relationships between the hadith and history of the fatwah. You post links without reading it yourself from beginning to the end. But you just like to act as if you are teaching and making it clear. I am tired of correcting your irresponsible quotes as you go. I hope you don't bother me anymore. Thank you.

[Sumerian]

37 minutes ago, ema said:

E.L. King, What made clear by you is you have very little knowledge on seafood. And you have no idea about the relationships between the hadith and history of the fatwah. You post links without reading it yourself from beginning to the end. But you just like to act as if you are teaching and making it clear. I am tired of correcting your irresponsible quotes as you go. I hope you don't bother me anymore. Thank you.

I never claimed to be your teacher or have more knowledge than you sister astaghfirullah that would be the pinnacle of arrogance, I haven't even gotten into my twenties yet. What I meant by teachers is our scholars like Khomeini and Sistani.

I actually know that there is a diverse amount of opinions on seafoods and their rulings - Sayyed Fadlullah for example had a fatwa which said that fish with scales is halal to eat, possibly because there narrations (and there are some authentic narrations, from Al-Kafi) which imply that they are only makruh, not haram. However, from our past fuqaha and our modern ones, the most famous opinion is that they are haram, due to other hadiths (like the one I posted).

So this issue is one with conflicting hadiths, and this is why it is safer to look for the scholars as guides in these matters, unless you of course have a decent amount of knowledge in Islamic Fiqh to be able to come up with your own rulings.

If I annoyed you in anyway sister than please forgive me, it wasn't my intention. 

Edited September 30, 2016 by E.L King

[repenter-gone4awhile]

On 9/30/2016 at 6:17 AM, ema said:

You missed the whole posting. Please pay attention. Definition of scale by science, sturgeon has ganoid scales instead of the permitted ctenoid and cycloid scales.

However, traditionally, religious scholars of Judaism and Shia deemed sturgeon as unscaled fish.

Until Khomeini issued fatwah in 1981 that overrode traditional view that sturgeon as haram fish from the Imams that to qualify as fals, scales must be detachable from the fish’s flesh without tearing bits of it out.

The sources are already posted in previous postings of mine.

You also need to read what you post. Ayatollah Khomeini, just like other marjas are way too smart to dig their own graves. He said very clearly that if the experts say it has scales then its halal. He didn't give a spesific fatwa for a spesific fish. 

 

That said, Iranian mafia and business men out of religious circles tried many years to make sturgeon or beluga halal, and went to great lengths such as looking at its tail in a damn microscope to find scales. All so they can sell their caviar.

 

Religious people in iran don't eat sturgeon nor its caviar as we all know it doesn't have scales. It looks like a pig and has the no visible scales.

[ema]

On 9/30/2016 at 9:32 AM, repenter said:

You also need to read what you post. Ayatollah Khomeini, just like other marjas are way too smart to dig their own graves. He said very clearly that if the experts say it has scales then its halal. He didn't give a spesific fatwa for a spesific fish. 

 

That sais, Iranian mafia and business men out of religious circles tried many years to make sturgeon or beluga halal, and went to great lengths such as looking at its tail in a damn microscope to find scales. All so they can sell their caviar.

 

Religious people in iran don't eat sturgeon nor its caviar as we all know it doesn't have scales. It looks like a pig and has the no visible scales.

The link I posted earlier explains why Khomeini was asked to make clear statement on the specific fish.

" After the ouster of President Abolhasan Banisadr in June 1981, the fundamentalists consolidated their rule over the state, and from then on, all policies had to conform to the shari’a. Caviar had netted Iran millions in export earnings before the revolution, and the loss would be keenly felt. Shilat officials therefore decided to ask the clergy to give a ruling on whether sturgeon was halal or not. The Shiite clergy had traditionally shied away from giving such precise rulings, preferring to state the general rule (“only fish with scales can be eaten”) and leaving the actual application of the rule to a specific case (“the sturgeon has scales”) to the individual believer. But upon taking control of the state, they in fact assumed legislative powers since the very raison d’ětre of the Islamic Republic was to bring state policy in line with the religious injunctions the clergy knew best. Under these new condition, general rules were no longer sufficient, and the clerics had to make concrete statements that would inform policy: the exact status of sturgeon and caviar were now an affair of state. "

[ema]

4 minutes ago, ema said:

Religious people in iran don't eat sturgeon nor its caviar as we all know it doesn't have scales. It lools like a pig and has the no visible scales.

So is it halal to gather haram food and export others to eat?

Khomeini's new fatwah made it halal, right?

Scientifically, it can be called as scales but still not qualified by imams requirement from hadith that scales must be removed without tearing its flesh, I read.

[repenter-gone4awhile]

3 hours ago, ema said:

So is it halal to gather haram food and export others to eat?

Khomeini's new fatwah made it halal, right?

Scientifically, it can be called as scales but still not qualified by imams requirement from hadith that scales must be removed without tearing its flesh, I read.

Just because its Iran doesn't mean everything is religious. Iran also has interest rate in the banks, which is haram. Caviar is a billion dollar business, and since a marja can't go around and check every fish in the world, the fatwa is: If it has scales, it is halal. 

Your link is also half full sort of say. The story is quite simple, they asked Imam if sturgeon was halal, he said: Whatever the experts say, if it has scales its halal, if not its not. So others, checked and reported it to have scales. Which most religious people know to be utter horseradish. 

[ema]

1 hour ago, repenter said:

Just because its Iran doesn't mean everything is religious.

I thought the highest religious authority who are Islamic scholars took the power in Iran, and they decide what is haram or halal for all shia by their fatwah and conduct. From what you said, blind taqlid is not warranted then. Good to hear that. 

[repenter-gone4awhile]

Just now, ema said:

I thought the highest religious authority who are Islamic scholars took the power in Iran, and they decide what is haram or halal for all shia by their fatwah and conduct. From what you said, blind taqlid is not warranted then. Good to hear that. 

Certain things are hard to change...even for marajah. Mafia controlled entities is one of them. Takes time, and sometimes God himself fixes is. Sturgeon is dying out in the caspian sea....so that business is on a heavy decline.

[ema]

Then the government should try to restore sturgeon from being extinct. It would be tragic to let it extinct forever from earth what Allah made for us.

[repenter-gone4awhile]

45 minutes ago, ema said:

Then the government should try to restore sturgeon from being extinct. It would be tragic to let it extinct forever from earth what Allah made for us.

They are trying...but dont think they are succeeding very much

[Guest Hassan Kh]

On 2/19/2010 at 12:44 AM, ali the lion said:

It is very clear in the quran that only fish with scales are allowed.

But Qura’an didnt mention things like lobster, muscles, scallops, oysters etc.

these dont fall under fish category & Qura’an mentioned only fish with scales.

how can we figure this out ? 

[notme]

18 minutes ago, Guest Hassan Kh said:

But Qura’an didnt mention things like lobster, muscles, scallops, oysters etc.

these dont fall under fish category & Qura’an mentioned only fish with scales.

how can we figure this out ? 

They're bugs. Well, shrimp, lobsters, and crabs are.  Mussels, scallops, crabs and the like are more similar to snails.  

[Ashvazdanghe]

7 hours ago, Guest Hassan Kh said:

But Qura’an didnt mention things like lobster, muscles, scallops, oysters etc.

these dont fall under fish category & Qura’an mentioned only fish with scales.

how can we figure this out ? 

 

7 hours ago, notme said:

They're bugs. Well, shrimp, lobsters, and crabs are.  Mussels, scallops, crabs and the like are more similar to snails.  

Salam & happy month of Ramadan 

Why are shrimps halal and crabs haram? What makes one of them halal and the other halal despite the fact that both of them are from the same category?

question

Why is it permissible to eat shrimps and forbidden to eat crabs and lobsters? Please explain the difference between them, their genus, category and other distinguishing features?

When it comes to the permissibility of consuming shrimps, what has been mentioned in some narrations is that shrimps are from the category of scaly fish which is why it is halal to eat but crabs are not from the said category.

 

Quote

Concise answer
Although all Islamic laws are a result of the benefits or disadvantages and harms that back them, and there is a particular reason behind each and every one of them, discovering the exact reason in detail for every one of them is extremely difficult. The most we can do is give some general guidelines regarding these laws, and what we mean here by ‘general’ is not that there are not any exceptions either. When it comes to the permissibility of consuming shrimps, what has been mentioned in some narrations is that shrimps are from the category of scaly fish which is why it is halal to eat but crabs are not from the said category.

 

Imam Baqir ((عليه السلام).) replied: "Eat the fish that has scales and do not eat the fish that does not have scales?" Scales are the small, thin horny or bony plates protecting the skin of fish and reptiles, typically overlapping one another.[5]

It should be noted that the fish should be from the category of scaly fish and there is no objection, if the fish have lost their scales due certain environmental factors or the way the fish live as stated in the narrations.[6]

As for shrimps, we have special narrations according to which "eating shrimps is allowed and that shrimps are a kind fish."[7]

As for the philosophy of the permissibility of eating shrimps, there are different probabilities which are enumerated as under:

Quote

1. Shrimps are from the category of scaly fish though we do not see the scales with naked eyes.

2. Shrimps have had scales in the beginning but they have lost their scales over time.

3. Despite the fact that, essentially shrimp don’t have scales, from the legal perspective it is set within the category of fish that have scales. In other words, for reasons we are not aware of, it has been considered as an exception and consequently halal, although it does not have scales.[8]

In addition, we have a hadith that states the impermissibility of crab: “Eating jerī (type of fish), turtle and crab is haram.”[9]  It is clear that crabs are not from the category of scaly fish.

Having said that, it is clear that shrimps are permissible to eat and crabs are haram to eat even though we cannot tell precisely the essential and typical difference between them. If the science has not been able thus far to discover the essential and categorical difference between these two creatures, it does not mean that there is no difference between them. We hope that a day will come when food experts or zoologists will be able to discover the difference through their extensive research.

https://www.islamquest.net/en/archive/fa2070

[notme]

@Ashvazdanghe I had assumed shrimp are permitted while other aquatic arthropods are not, because they are filter feeders, not bottom feeders. They most definitely are not fish. 

Aren't locusts also permissible to eat? 

[Guest Mohamed Irshad]

On 9/29/2016 at 3:47 PM, Sumerian said:

Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian and Black Sea^[2] (Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga caviars). Depending on the country, caviar may also be used to describe the roe of other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish,^[3] carp,^[4] and other species of sturgeon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviar

and sister, please read the following important link:

https://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetwork/msg00283.html

Hopefully you will understand the situation more.

Thankyou, the last link was very useful

[Haji 2003]

On 4/26/2022 at 11:26 AM, notme said:

Aren't locusts also permissible to eat? 

 

Yes. As long as they have wings. I can't find the thread where I described eating these. But they were ok. I ate them whole, but in the form of flour I'd imagine they could easily form part of a regular diet.