ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah “The slaughtering of an animal to seek the pleasure of anyone other than Allah” QURAN AL FAJR: “Verses 172 – 173 0 those who believe, eat of the good things We have provided you and be grateful to Allah, if (really) you are to worship Him alone. He has only forbidden you: carrion, blood, the flesh of swine and that upon which a name other than Allah has been invoked. So whoever is compelled by necessity, neither seeking pleasure nor transgressing, then there is no sin on him. Verily, Allah is Most-Forgiving, Very-Merciful. (Verses 172 - 173)” THE QURAN ILLUSTRATED 13TH MARCH 2014 The blood The second thing forbidden in the verse is blood. The word, dam, (pronounced a, sum in English) meaning blood has been used here in the absolute sense, but, in verse (6:145) of Surah al-An’ām, it has been subjected to a qualification, that is: masfuhan “: that which flows”. Therefore, fuqaha’ agree that congealed blood such as, the kidney or spleen, are clean and permissible.1. Since flowing blood is what is forbidden, the blood that remains on the flesh after slaughtering the animal is clean. The Muslim jurists, the blessed Companions and their successors and the Ummah in general agree on this. On the same analogy, the blood of mosquitoes, flies and bed bugs is not unclean. But, should this be significant it has to be washed clean. (Jassas) 2. As eating or drinking blood is forbidden, its external use is also forbidden. As the buying and selling and seeking any benefit from impurities is forbidden, the buying and selling of blood is forbidden and all income derived from it is also forbidden. This is because dam or blood in the words of the Holy Qur’an has been forbidden in the absolute sense which includes all possible ways in which it can be used.(Note: In bio-chemistry, the enzyme rennin in present is rennet and is a Milk-curdling agent). Blood Transfusion Actually, human blood is a part of human body. When taken out of the body, it is rated as najis or impure, which would require that transfusion of blood from one human body to another be regarded as haram for two reasons: a) Since respecting the human body is necessary and this act is contrary to that respect. b) Blood is heavy impurity (al-najasah al ghalizah) and the use of things impure is not permissible. But, looking into the conveniences allowed by the Shariah of Islam under conditions of compulsion and in general treatment of diseases, we come to the following conclusions: To begin with, blood is no doubt a part of the human body but its transfusion into the body of another person requires no surgery. Blood is drawn out by means of a syringe from one human body and transferred to another by the same process. Therefore, it is like milk which forms in the human body and goes on to become the part of another human being. The Shariah of Islam, in view of the need of the human child, has made nothing but milk as his or her initial food, making it obligatory on mothers to feed their children as far as they stay married to their respective husbands. After divorce, mothers cannot be forced to feed their children. To provide sustenance to children is the responsibility of the father; it is he who must arrange to have the child suckled by a wet-nurse, or request the mother to continue feeding the baby against payment. The Holy Quran is very clear on this subject when it says:If they (your divorced wives) suckle (your children) for you, then, pay for their services. (65:6) In short, milk which is a part of the human body has still been made permissible for children in view of their need. It is even permissible to use it medically for elders as well. It appears in Alamgiriah: There is no harm if female milk is dropped in the nose of a man to cure him of some disease, or even if it is given orally as medicine. (For further details on this subject see Al-Mughni by ibn Qudamah, Kitab al-Sayd, volume 8, page 602.) If blood is dealt with on the analogy of milk, the analogy would not be too far-fetched, since milk is also an altered form of blood and shares with it the common factor of being a part of the human person. The only difference between them is that milk is clean while blood is not. So, the first reason of unlawfulness, that is, being a part of human body, is no more operative here. What remains is the aspect of its impurity. In this case too, some fuqaha have permitted the use of blood on medical grounds. Therefore, the correct position is that the transfer of human blood to another body does not seem to be permissible in Shari’ah under normal conditions, but doing so under compulsive conditions on medical grounds is doubtlessly permissible. Compulsive conditions mean that the patient faces a life or death situation and no life-saving drug turns out to be effective or is just not available and there is a strong likelihood that the patients life would be saved through the blood transfusion. If these conditions are met, giving of blood will be permissible under the authority of this Qur’anic text which clearly permits the saving of ones life by eating the flesh of a dead animal, if compelled by necessity. However, in the event that there be no condition of compulsion or other medicines and treatments could work, the problem has been dealt with differently by different jurists; some say that it is permissible while others maintain that it is not. Details are available in books of Fiqh. The swine is forbidden The third thing forbidden in this verse is the flesh of the swine. It will be noted that i t is the flesh of swine which has been mentioned here as unlawful. Al –Qurtubi explains this by saying that the aim here is not to restrict or particularize flesh as such. In fact, all parts of the swine, the bones, the skin, the hair, the ligaments, are forbidden by the consensus of the Muslim community. The introduction of the word Lahm (flesh) is to point out that the swine is not like other prohibited animals which can be purified by slaughtering, even if eating of them stays prohibited. The reason is that the flesh of the swine does not get purified even if the swine is slaughtered, as it is absolutely impure and unlawful. However, the use of its bristles to sow leather has been permitted in Hadith (Jassas, Qurtubi) The consecrated animals The fourth thing forbidden in this verse is an animal dedicated to anyone other than Allah. This takes three known forms: (1) The slaughtering of an animal to seek the pleasure of anyone other than Allah and calling the name of that anyone while slaughtering it, is unanimously forbidden with the consensus of the Muslim community. This animal is maitah: dead. It is not permissible to derive any benefit from any of its parts because this is what the verse (173) clearly means without any difference of opinion. (2) The slaughtering of an animal to seek the pleasure of anyone other than Allah, despite the fact that the animal was slaughtered by calling the name of Allah, is also forbidden in the Shari’ah. This is something a large number of ignorant Muslims do when they slaughter goats and sheep, even chicken, to seek the pleasure of elders and leaders, and they do this by calling the name of Allah at the time of slaughter. The fuqaha agree that all such forms are haram and the animal slaughtered in this manner is a dead animal, a carcass. However, there is some difference of opinion about the reason. Some commentators and jurists maintain that this second situation is also what the verse (173) means to cover. It appears in the Hawashi of al -Baydawi: “Every animal on which a name other than that of Allah was called is haram, even though it was slaughtered in the name of Allah. Therefore, ulama agree that a Muslim, who slaughters an animal and intends to seek the pleasure of anyone other than Allah through it, will become an apostate, and the animal he slaughters will be taken as one slaughtered by an apostate. In addition to this, it is said in Al-Durr al-Mukhtar, Kitab al -dhabaih: “Slaughtering an animal to celebrate the visit of a dignitary is haram because that comes under ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah even though the name of Allah has been mentioned at the time of slaughter. (Volume 5, page 214) Al-Shami concurs with this view. There are others who have not gone to the extent of declaring that this situation is what ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah means clearly since it would be a little burdened Arabic-wise to import the phrase for this situation, but it is on the basis of the commonality of cause, that is, because of the intention of seeking the pleasure of anyone other than Allah, that they have tied this too with ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah and have declared it to be haram. In the view of this humble writer, this view is the most sound, cautious and safe. Nevertheless, there is a regular verse of the Holy Quran which supports the unlawfulness of this situation, that is, wama dhubiyah alan nusub. The word, nusub here means everything worshipped falsely. So, it signifies animals that have been slaughtered for false gods. Since, wa ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah has been mentioned earlier, it tells us that ma uhilla clearly means the animal on which a name other than that of Allah has been recited at the time of its slaughter, and that dhubiha ala nnusub appears in contrast to it where the reciting of a name other than that of Allah has not been mentioned. It simply means the act of slaughtering with the intention of pleasing idols. Included here are animals which have been, in fact, slaughtered to seek the pleasure of somebody other than Allah even though the name of Allah has been recited at the time of slaughtering them. his special note is from my teacher, (Hakim al-ummah Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi.) Imam Al-Qurtubi has taken the same approach in his Tafsir where he has said: “It was a customary practice of the Arabs that, at the time they were to slaughter, they would call aloud the name of the entity the slaughter was intended for. That was so much in vogue among them, that in this verse, their intention, that is, their seeking of the pleasure of one other than Allah, which is the real cause of forbiddance, was identified as ihlal or call. (Tafsir al-Qurtubi, volume 2, page 307 Imam Al-Qurtubi has based his findings on the fatawa or religious rulings of Sayyidna Ali and Sayyidah Aishah, may Allah be pleased with them both) During the days of Sayyidna Ali (RA) , Ghalib, the father of poet Farazdaq had slaughtered a camel and there is no report to confirm that the name of someone other than Allah was mentioned on it at the time of its slaughter. But, Sayyidna Ali (RA) decided that this too fell under the category of ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah and was haram. The Companions, may Allah bless them all, accepted the verdict. Similarly, Al-Qurtubi; reports a lengthy Hadith from Sayyidah Aishah (RA) on the authority of Yahya ibn Yahya, the teacher of Imam Muslim. Towards the end, it says that a certain woman asked her: 0 umm al-muminin, some of our foster relatives are non-Arabs and they have one or the other festival going for them all the time. On these festivals, they send us gifts. Should we eat them or should we not? Thereupon, Sayyidah Aishah (AS) said: “Do not eat what has been slaughtered for that day, but you can eat (fruits) from their trees. (Qurtubi, volume 2, page 207) To sum up, it can be said that the second situation in which the intention is to seek the favour of an entity other than Allah even though Allahs name is called at the time of slaughtering the animal comes under the purview of the prohibition relating to ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah for two reasons: a. The commonness of cause, that is, because of the intention to seek the favour of an entity other than Allah. b. It is also covered by the verse (5:3), and therefore, this too is forbidden. 3. There is a third situation also where an animal is released after cutting off its ear lobe or branding it in some other manner and this is done to seek the pleasure of an entity other than Allah and to make it an object of reverence paid to the same entity. The animal in this case was neither used in its normal functions nor intended to be slaughtered. Rather, slaughtering such an animal used to be held as unlawful. Such animals are not covered under the prohibition envisaged in verse 173 (Ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah) or in verse 5:3 (Ma dhubiha ala nnusub), instead, animals of this kind are known as Bahirah or Sa’ibah and according to the injunction of the Quran the practice of releasing them in that manner is haram as it would appear later under the verse: (where mention of Sa’ibah has been made). However, it should be borne in mind that their practice of releasing an animal in this unlawful manner or their false beliefs about it do not render the animal itself unlawful. Rather, if such animals are held to be forbidden, it will amount to supporting their false beliefs. Therefore, this animal is lawful like any other animal. But, in accordance with the principles of Muslim law, this animal does not go out of the ownership of its owner. It continues to be owned by him, even though, he thinks that it is no more his property and has been dedicated to someone other than Allah. This belief of the owner of the animal is false and, in accordance with the dictate of the Shari’ah, the animal continues to be in his ownership. Now, if this person sells this animal or gives it as gift to someone, then, this animal will be lawful for the assignee. This is what people in some countries do when they endow goats or cows in the name of their idols or gods and leave them with the management of the temples to do what they like with them. Some of them sell these animals to Muslims as well. Similarly, some ignorant Muslims also do things like that at shrines or graveyards. There they would leave a goat or a full-grown male domestic foul in the hands of the keepers who sell these out. So, those who buy such livestock or poultry from the keepers authorized by owners, for them, it is perfectly lawful if they buy, slaughter, eat or sell them onwards.Nadhr lighayrillah: Offering for anyone other than Allah Here we have a fourth situation on our hands which does not relate to animals but to things other than these. For instance, food or sweets offered against vows in the name of someone other than Allah by Hindus in their temples and by ignorant Muslims in shrines. This kind of nadhr or mannat in the name of someone other than Allah has also been declared haram because of the commonness of cause, that is, because of the intention to seek the favour of one other than Allah and which comes under the same prohibition as contemplated in ma uhilla bihi lighayrillah as a result of which its eating, feeding, buying and selling all become haram. Details can be seen in the books of fiqh such as Al-Bahr al-Raiq and others. This injunction is based on the analogy of the animals mentioned expressly in the text of the Holy Quran. (Source Maarif ul Quran, vol.1, pp 433,434)
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 02:47:52 +0000
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