Some Lessons from Jurisprudence (Fiqh)

In hunting by non-animals means, it is a condition that the weapon be iron, or at least metal, and it must be so sharp that it kills the animal by its sharpness. So hunting with stones and blunt metal missiles is not permissable. In both forms of hunting, just like in both forms of slaughtering, the conditions that the man responsible for the animal's death, he the hunter, be a Muslim, and that he begins in the Name of God, must be met for the meat of that animal to be permissable. There are other conditions but they are detailed and here is not their place.

The Book of Eating and Drinking

Islam has a series of instructions concerning the gifts of nature as regarding eating and drinking. The laws of slaughtering and hunting are amongst these, and so are the laws of eating and drinking. In the view of Islam, all good things, i.e. things that are beneficient and useful, are permitted, while all foul things, things that are not beneficial and which are abominable for man, are forbidden. Furthermore, Islam has not contented itself with explaining these generalities but has made it clear that a whole group of things are foul and must be shunned, and that other things are good and there is no obstacle to the making use of them.

Eating means either the eating of meat or the eating of other things. Meat is either from the creatures of the sea or of the land or of the air. Of the creatures of the sea only fish are permissable, and then again only the fish that have scales. [7] The creatures of the land are of two types: tame and wild. The tame animals, the meat of which is permissable to eat are cows, sheep, camels, hens, horses, donkeys and mules which are all permissable, though the eating of the meat of horses, donkeys and mules is undesirable (makruh). The meat of dogs and cats and pigs is forbidden. Of the wild animals, the meat of carnivorous animals and insects is forbidden. The meat of deer, however, and of wild cows and goats and other wild animals that are permissable when tame, is permissable. The meat of hares and rabbits, though they are not carnivorous, in accordance to the famous verdict of the 'ulema is forbidden.

Of birds, the meat of the different types of pigeon, partridge, ducks, domestic hens and so on are permissable. The meat of hunting birds is forbidden.

In the cases where the Shari'ah has not made clear the status of the meat of birds, there are two signs of its being forbidden. One is that when the bird flies it does not need to flap it's wings all the time and mostly glides. The other is that it has no crop, or no gizzard or no sign of a bump on the back of its leg.

Other than animals: to eat or drink any kind of intrinsic filth (najasat) like urine, faeces, blood, sperm, alcohol, etc., is forbidden, and the same applies to any intrinsically clean thing that intrinsic filth has dirtied and which is called mutunajas. Similarly, to eat or drink anything that is harmful to the body, the harm of which is considered significant like poison, for example, is also forbidden . If medicine discerns that a certain thing, tobacco for example, is definitely harmful to the body, to the heart, let's say, or to the nerves, and shortens one's life expectation or produces cancer, then its use will be forbidden. If it is not consequential, however, and is simply like breathing the air of most cities, it is not forbidden .

For a pregnant woman to consume something which leads to the abortion of her child, or for a person to consume something that leads to disorder of the senses, or for a man to consume something that leads to his sterilization, or for a woman to consume something that leads to her permanent sterility, is forbidden.

To eat earth is absolutely forbidden, whether it is harmful or not. The drinking of intoxicating liquors is also absolutely forbidden. Furthermore, to consume that which belongs to another without the consent of the owner is strictly forbidden, but this is an incidental prohibition, not intrinsic.

Some parts of permitted-meat animals is forbidden, including the spleen, the testicles and generative parts. Likewise, the milk of forbidden-meat animals is also forbidden .