Seafood (1)

It seems that the majority of readers (who responded) consider the moon issue to be overly talked about, so we are moving to seafood! This topic was chosen for two reasons:

Firstly, because it is a topic, about which there are differences of opinion. This is useful because it shows how scholars think and come to conclusions, and it is easy to see inside the mind of a scholar!

Secondly, because Ayatullah Fadlallah published a short explanation of his point of view on the topic a few months prior to his death. I thought it makes sense to cover a piece of legal derivation from one of the leading jurists of the day, especially as I have not covered anything from him so far.

Now onto the topic! The general opinion amongst Shii scholars is that eating animals from the sea is not allowed other than fish with scales. Some even consider this opinion as a distinguishing feature of being an Imami. However, Syed Fadlallah does not believe that this is correct and in the next few blogs, I will detail his method of proving his case.

His work here is not a part of a larger look at every single ruling like Ayatullah Khui’s work – instead, it is just a detailed look at one topic. This makes it possible to frame the discussion in a different way, and the structure of the argument is therefore interesting:

1. Firstly, he considers whether all sea food should be Halal or Haram if there was no evidence at all i.e. what the `Asl (base ruling) is

2. He then moves onto the general pieces of evidence (‘Umumat) that are available, which would be applicable if there was no specific evidence to the contrary (e.g. in the Qur`an, the verses that might imply that all food from the sea is Halal)

3. Finally, he looks at specific evidence relevant to the topic, which if considered sound, would take precedence as exceptions to the general rules laid out above.


In the next blog, we will look at point 1 i.e. what the base ruling should be if there was no evidence to the contrary.