Seafood (10)

In the last blog we looked at Fadlallah’s view that there was no consensus on the issue of eating fish without scales, and he noted that there is an apparent contradiction in the narrations with some suggesting they are allowed (a minority but unambiguous) and some suggesting they are not allowed (a majority but potentially open to being restricted).

When dealing with contradictions in Shi’i usul al-fiqh, there are several methods (as the assumption is that the Imam cannot have made a mistake and said two contradictory things):
1. Trying to reconcile them where possible and plausible (jam’ urfi) e.g. if there is something general and something particular, they both could be right and one could be an exception to the other
2. Give a greater weight to the set of narrations that is against the opinion of the Sunnis (based on the fact that the Imams might have been in Taqiyya and said one of the statements under duress) – this rule of “ma khalaf al-aama” is based on a sahih narration in al-Kafi from the 6th Imam (AS).

Normally the first option will always be preferred where possible and plausible. Where the above two do not reach a conclusion, the narrations are discarded.

The method used by most scholars in this case is the second one as Sunnis believe that you can eat fish without scales. However, Fadlallah says that there must be constraints to the usage of this second rule. He posits two important constraints:

1. Only the minimum would be said by the Imam (AS) i.e. he would not add supplementary evidence if he was under duress. In this case, we see the Imam (AS) backing up this point of view with Quranic verses and Fadlallah wonders why he would do this if he was only under taqiyya – as it backs up the other argument

Of course, one might argue that the Imam might have used that verse of the Quran to justify the Sunni position, in order to satisfy the Sunni audience and protect his followers but the problem is that this is a legal matter, and therefore the assumption must be that the Imam expressed what he wanted to express unless you are confident that this is not the case i.e. the evidence is on the other foot!

2. Secondly, he suggests that this rule can only be applied as a last resort when you cannot reconcile the narrations (we will come to this later – to understand Fadlallah’s view)

3. Finally, he says that according to the narration that is the basis of this rule, the first thing to do is to compare the narrations with the Qur’an before looking at the Sunnis’ actions. And in this case, Fadlallah argues that the narrations that support the eating of fish without scales are in line with the Quran as stated in previous blogs


Fadlallah therefore argues that using the second method of solving the apparent contradiction does not make sense here, and for him, it does make sense to reconcile the narrations in the following way:

1. Those that indicate impermissibility – consider that they actually are talking about makruh (rather than haram) – this is a possible interpretation in usul al-fiqh where “Don’t do XX” can be an advisory statement.
2. Those that indicate permissibility – consider these to be again referring to makruh

Therefore, the correct rule for him is that these fish without scales are makruh to eat.

In the final blog on this topic, I will conclude and discuss this methodology and how it provides an insight into the minds of scholars. I will also give my thoughts on the next set of blogs – and hope that you agree with them!