The Slaughter of the People of the Book in the Qurʾanic Approach: The American Context as a Case Study

A scholarly paper derived from the peer-reviewed study submitted to the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) — the Ninth Annual Conference for Mosque Imams (2012), under the title "The Lawful and the Forbidden in Foods and Medicines"; this is its revised and expanded published version (2026). By: Shaykh Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy (AIA).

At the outset of this paper, it is my pleasure to extend my sincere thanks and profound gratitude to the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) — its president, secretariat, and members — for the honor it afforded me of investigating this thorny subject, one that touches the daily life of the Muslim resident in the United States in the most direct way. For there is scarcely a Muslim household in this land in which the question of the lawfulness of the meat circulating in its markets is not present at the table.

Abstract

This paper examines the ruling concerning the slaughtered meat (dhabīḥah) of the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb) by way of a Qurʾanic approach that establishes the continuing validity of the designation "People of the Book" for Jews and Christians, together with the rulings on table-fellowship that follow from it, while considering the effect of the disbelief or polytheism with which the Qurʾan has described certain factions among them. It concludes that what appears in the Qurʾan describing groups among them as disbelievers or polytheists establishes a creedal judgment upon what they have innovated and rejected, but does not entail the cancellation of the distinct Qurʾanic designation that belongs to them, nor of the rulings that rest upon it in the chapters of food and marriage; for the inquiry concerns the root of religious affiliation, not the soundness of belief. It establishes that juristic consensus (ijmāʿ) is settled upon the basic lawfulness of their slaughtered meat by the text of the verse of al-Māʾidah, that the disagreement falls within the secondary branches of the question, and that the eligibility of the slaughterer is one condition while the mechanism of slaughter is another, independent condition to which the same verse bears witness — ﴿except that which you have slaughtered properly﴾. It then applies the ruling to the reality of the United States by means of the principle of the predominant (al-ghālib) and the jurisprudence of the means (sadd and fatḥ al-dharāʾiʿ), closing with practical guidelines and institutional recommendations for the Muslim community.

Keywords: the People of the Book — slaughtered meat — lawful ritual slaughter — fiqh of minorities — the principle of the predominant — blocking the means — the United States.

Methodological Introduction

Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings upon His servant, prophet, and messenger, the choicest of creation and imam of the rightly guided. To proceed:

The importance of the subject and its problematic: The question of the slaughtered meat of the People of the Book is among those that recur whenever a Muslim moves from an environment in which the presence of Muslims, their rites, and their slaughterhouses predominates to an environment in which others predominate. Today millions of Muslims live in Western societies, where this question touches their daily life directly; and much has been said about it, between one who narrows the matter and forbids the contents of the markets wholesale, and one who broadens it and draws no distinction between one case and another. The problematic of this study is defined by the question posed by the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America: Are Christians (and Jews) today to be considered among the People of the Book whose slaughtered meat the Law has made lawful, given the well-known creedal deviation among them and the distance of many of them from religious observance?

Research questions: (1) Did the Noble Qurʾan distinguish between the People of the Book and the polytheists in naming and in ruling? (2) What is the effect of describing some of them as disbelievers or polytheists upon the continuation of the designation "People of the Book" for them? (3) What is the ruling on their slaughtered meat in the words of the scholars, early and late, and where do consensus and disagreement lie within it? (4) How is the ruling to be applied to the reality of the mixed American society by means of the principle of the predominant and the jurisprudence of the means? (5) Is it a condition of considering them People of the Book that they adhere to their religion?

Research method: The inductive-analytical method: by surveying the verses concerning the People of the Book and classifying them, then analyzing their indications in light of the statements of the exegetes and legal theorists, together with the comparative method in presenting the views of the jurists, and the application of the rulings to the American reality through the principles of jurisprudence and the higher aims of the Law.

Prior studies: The root of the question was treated in the early period within the corpora of jurisprudence and exegesis. Among the most notable recent works are: the study "The Well-Grounded Opinions on the Ruling of Imported Slaughtered Meats and Flesh" by Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad al-Daylamī; Resolution No. 95 (3/10) of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy concerning slaughtered meats (1997); the resolutions of the European Council for Fatwa and Research concerning slaughtered meats and the food of the People of the Book; and the chapter on slaughtered meats in The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam by al-Qaraḍāwī. This paper is distinguished by its focus on the Qurʾanic treatment of the designation "People of the Book" and its construction of this as the foundation for the ruling, then its application to the particularity of the American reality.

Plan of the study: The study is arranged into an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter: the People of the Book in the Qurʾanic treatment. The second chapter: the ruling on the slaughtered meat of the People of the Book. The third chapter: reflections on contemporary fatwas and the reality of Muslims in the West. The fourth chapter: the effect of the contemporary mechanism of slaughter upon the ruling. The fifth chapter: applying the Qurʾanic text to the Western reality (the principle of the predominant and the jurisprudence of the means). The sixth chapter: Is it a condition of considering them People of the Book that they adhere to their religion? Then the conclusion, containing the findings and recommendations.

Chapter One: The People of the Book in the Qurʾanic Treatment

The correct point of entry into this question is to begin from the Qurʾanic designation itself: "the People of the Book." For the origin of the disagreement over the ruling on their slaughtered meat traces back to the scholars' interpretation of the verses in which God Most High mentioned them and their attributes as they appear in the Mighty Book:

• There is one who holds them to be polytheists or disbelievers, in view of what has come regarding some of them, being designated with disbelief and polytheism in more than one place in the Book of God Most High, and their denial of the prophethood of Muhammad, the Messenger of God ﷺ.
• And there is one who considers them according to the root of their religion, in view of the Qurʾanic texts that name them "People of the Book" and make lawful dealing with them, eating their food, and intermarrying with them.

So did the Noble Qurʾan distinguish between the polytheists and the People of the Book, and did it describe them as polytheists or disbelievers? The answer is that God Most High brought forth, in distinguishing between the People of the Book and the disbelievers or polytheists:

1. ﴿You will surely find the most intense of people in hostility toward the believers to be the Jews and those who associate others with God; and you will surely find the nearest of them in affection to the believers to be those who say, "We are Christians."﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 82].

1. ﴿And you will surely hear from those who were given the Scripture before you, and from those who associate others with God, much abuse.﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 186].

1. ﴿Indeed, those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians, and the Magians, and those who associate others with God — God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed, God is, over all things, Witness.﴾ [al-Ḥajj: 17].

1. ﴿O you who believe, do not take those who have taken your religion in ridicule and amusement — from among those who were given the Scripture before you and the disbelievers — as allies.﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 57].

In these verses and others there is an indication that the polytheists are other than the People of the Book in ruling and in description; for conjunction requires distinction between the conjoined terms, since conjoining a thing upon itself requires a special proof.

Yet there are other verses that have described the People of the Book with disbelief or polytheism, such as His saying, Most High:

1. ﴿Say, "O People of the Book, why do you disbelieve in the signs of God, while God is Witness over what you do?"﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 98].

1. ﴿O People of the Book, why do you disbelieve in the signs of God while you bear witness?﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 70].

1. ﴿Say, "O People of the Book, come to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God and associate nothing with Him."﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 64].

1. ﴿The Jews said, "ʿUzayr is the son of God," and the Christians said, "The Messiah is the son of God"... Exalted is He above what they associate with Him.﴾ [al-Tawbah: 30–31].

And between these verses and those, there are yet other verses that make clear that the Qurʾan speaks to us of the People of the Book as two parties in creed, in worship, and in character:

As for creed: among these is ﴿And when there came to them a messenger from God confirming that which was with them, a party of those who were given the Scripture cast the Book of God behind their backs﴾ [al-Baqarah: 101], and ﴿And indeed, among them is a party who twist their tongues with the Scripture﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 78], and ﴿Many of the People of the Book wished they could turn you back to disbelief after your belief, out of envy from within themselves﴾ [al-Baqarah: 109].

And in the aspect of worship: ﴿They are not all alike. Among the People of the Book is an upright community who recite the verses of God during the hours of the night while they prostrate.﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 113].

And in the aspect of character: ﴿And among the People of the Book is he who, if you entrust him with a great sum, will return it to you; and among them is he who, if you entrust him with a single dinar, will not return it to you.﴾ [Āl ʿImrān: 75].

The understanding becomes coherent when we say that God described some of the People of the Book with explicit disbelief, as in His saying: ﴿They have certainly disbelieved who say, "God is the Messiah, son of Mary"﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 17], and ﴿They have certainly disbelieved who say, "God is the third of three"﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 73]; and He singled out some of them with His saying: ﴿Those who disbelieved from among the People of the Book and the polytheists were not to depart until there came to them the clear proof﴾ [al-Bayyinah: 1]; and He concluded: ﴿Indeed, those who disbelieved from among the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding therein eternally. Those are the worst of creatures.﴾ [al-Bayyinah: 6].

This does not mean that what they are upon is correct, nor that the Qurʾan's fairness toward them entails denying what they are upon of failing to follow the Final Prophet ﷺ. Yet their polytheism differs from the disbelief of the polytheists who worshipped idols; and what aids us in this is what Imam Ibn Taymiyyah mentioned in the Fatāwā:

Absolute polytheism (shirk) in the Qurʾan does not include the People of the Book; rather, they fall under qualified polytheism. God Most High said: ﴿Those who disbelieved from among the People of the Book and the polytheists﴾, thus making the polytheists a category other than the People of the Book... As for their inclusion under the qualified, it is in His saying: ﴿They have taken their rabbis and their monks as lords besides God﴾. The reason for this is that the root of their religion — that with which God sent down the Scriptures and dispatched the messengers — contained no polytheism; but they altered and changed, and innovated polytheism for which God sent down no authority, so that polytheism came to be among them in view of what they innovated, not in view of the root of the religion.

And Imam al-Shinqīṭī said: "The aspect of the distinction between them, despite conjoining some upon others, is that they are all polytheists, and the differentiation that justified the conjunction is their difference in the type of polytheism. The polytheism of the polytheists other than the People of the Book was polytheism in worship, for they worship idols, whereas the People of the Book do not worship idols; rather, they commit polytheism in lordship (rubūbiyyah), as God indicated by His saying: ﴿They have taken their rabbis and their monks as lords besides God﴾."

Summary of the chapter — between the name and the ruling: What emerges from the totality of the texts is that the People of the Book have two considerations: the consideration of the root of their affiliation to a heavenly scripture and to a religion that retains a remnant of the traces of revelation — and it is upon this that the specific rulings in transactions, in eating together and intermarriage, are built; and the consideration of what has befallen that root of distortion, alteration, and disbelief — especially disbelief in the Prophet ﷺ after his sending — and it is upon this that the general creedal judgment is built. There is thus no contradiction in saying: they are People of the Book with respect to the name and the specific ruling in the chapter of food and marriage, and they are disbelievers with respect to what they rejected after the sending. For if their mere falling into those statements removed from them every ruling connected to the name, there would remain no meaning for the revelation of the verse of al-Māʾidah — among the last to be revealed — establishing the lawfulness of their food and of marriage to the chaste women among them.

Chapter Two: The Ruling on the Slaughtered Meat of the People of the Book

As for partaking of their food and eating from their slaughter in their capacity as People of the Book, a number of scholars, early and late, have given the answer. We begin with what Imam Ibn Taymiyyah mentioned in reply to a group of Muslims whose censure had grown severe against anyone who ate from the slaughter of a Jew or a Christian absolutely. He replied to them, may God have mercy on him:

It is not for anyone to censure anyone else for eating the slaughter of the Jews and Christians in this age, nor is their slaughtering for the Muslims forbidden; and whoever denies this is ignorant, mistaken, and opposed to the consensus of the Muslims... For the position of forbidding that, in this age and before it, is an exceedingly weak position, opposed to what is known of the Sunnah of the Messenger of God ﷺ, and to what is known of the state of his Companions and those who followed them in excellence.

He then adduced, may God have mercy on him, the proofs of the Book, the Sunnah, and consensus:

As for the Book, His saying, Most High: ﴿And the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for them; and chaste women from among the believers and chaste women from among those who were given the Scripture before you﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 5].

As for the Sunnah: the Prophet ﷺ accepted the invitation of those Jews who invited him, and it is established that a Jewish woman presented to him a poisoned sheep, and he ate and the people ate, then he ﷺ said: "Lift your hands, for the sheep informs me that it is poisoned." Then he said to the Jewish woman: "What moved you to this?" She said: "I thought, if he is a prophet it will not harm him, and if he is a king I will have rid the people of him." So he ﷺ said: "God was not to give you power over me."(1)

As for consensus: a number of scholars transmitted it; among them Ibn Rushd in Bidāyat al-Mujtahid: "As for the People of the Book, the scholars are agreed upon the permissibility of their slaughtered meat, on account of His saying, Most High: ﴿And the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you﴾"; and Ibn Kathīr: "And this is a matter agreed upon among the scholars, that their slaughtered meat is lawful for the Muslims, because they hold the slaughtering for other than God to be forbidden"; and Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Qāsimī, al-Qurṭubī, and Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ābādī transmitted it from a number of the early authorities.

Defining the locus of consensus: What reconciles the foregoing transmissions of consensus with what will follow of reports from some of the Companions and Successors prohibiting or disliking it is this: the consensus is settled upon the basic lawfulness of the slaughtered meat of the People of the Book in general, by the text of the verse of al-Māʾidah; whereas the disagreement falls within the secondary branches of the question, not in its root — such as the slaughter of one from whom an invocation other than the name of God was heard, the slaughter of the Christians of Banū Taghlib, and that which is forbidden to them in their own law, such as fat. Thus, whoever transmitted the consensus intended the root, and whoever related the disagreement intended these branches, and there is no contradiction. The disagreement over the qualification does not cancel the root of the ruling, just as the root of the ruling does not cancel the effect of the qualification when it is established.

Among the reports on this is what is related from Ibn ʿAbbās, may God be pleased with them both, concerning His saying ﴿And the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you﴾: "It means the slaughter of the Jew and the Christian, even if the Christian says at the slaughter 'in the name of the Messiah' and the Jew says 'in the name of ʿUzayr'; and that is because they slaughter it upon the religion." And the like of this is reported from ʿAṭāʾ, al-Qāsim ibn Mukhaymirah, al-Zuhrī, Rabīʿah, al-Shaʿbī, and Makḥūl.(2) In contrast to this, a group — among them ʿAlī, ʿĀʾishah, Ibn ʿUmar, Ṭāwūs, and al-Ḥasan — held that if the Scriptuary is heard naming other than the name of God, it is not to be eaten, holding fast to His saying: ﴿And do not eat of that over which the name of God has not been mentioned, for indeed it is grave disobedience﴾ [al-Anʿām: 121].

Imam al-Shinqīṭī, in Dafʿ Īhām al-Iḍṭirāb, summarizes the cases of the Scriptuary's slaughter in five, with no sixth: that it be known he named God over it, so it is eaten without dispute; that it be known he invoked other than God over it, in which there is disagreement, the verified position being prohibition; that he combine the name of God with the name of another, the apparent sense of the texts being prohibition; that he be silent, naming nothing, the majority holding it permissible, which is the truth; that the matter be unknown because he slaughtered alone, so it is eaten according to the position of the majority of scholars, provided the Scriptuary is not known to eat carrion.

The question of fats: They disagreed concerning what was forbidden to the People of the Book — such as the abdominal fat of cattle and sheep forbidden to the Jews — as to whether it is permissible for the Muslim from what a Jew has slaughtered. The majority held it permissible, and their argument is: that lawful slaughter is indivisible, so once their slaughtered meat is made lawful, no need remains to consider their intent regarding particular parts of the slaughtered animal; and that the Qurʾan stipulated that there was forbidden to them ﴿every animal with claws﴾ [al-Anʿām: 146], so that if their position were binding, what has claws among that which a Jew slaughtered would be forbidden to the Muslim — which is not established; and what is established in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī of the Prophet's ﷺ approval of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughaffal's taking of a sack of fat from the Jews on the day of Khaybar(3); and what Aḥmad related from Anas, that a Jew hosted the Prophet ﷺ with barley bread and rancid fat.(4) Mālik disliked it and some of his companions prohibited it, arguing that what is forbidden to them is not part of their food such that it would enter into what the verse made lawful.

A note: the ruling on those who are not People of the Book in the mixed society. As for the Magians, the jurists disagreed concerning eating their slaughter, on account of what has come regarding them, such as the mursal of al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad that the Prophet ﷺ wrote to the Magians of Hajar inviting them to Islam, so whoever accepted Islam, it was accepted from him, and whoever did not, the jizyah was imposed upon him, "on the condition that no slaughter of his be eaten and no woman of his be married"(5); and what is established of the Prophet's ﷺ taking the jizyah from them by the testimony of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf.(6) What is preponderant is that their slaughter is not eaten in their own lands or in the places where they hold sway; but if they mix with others among the Muslims or the People of the Book, the ruling follows the predominant — especially where there are decisive laws governing the method of slaughter on the basis of the predominant religion of the land, as is the case in the United States. The ruling concerning them — and God knows best — encompasses idolaters and the irreligious, as well as public slaughterhouses that contain a mixture of workers from various religions.

Note (1): The ḥadīth of the poisoned sheep: the origin of the story is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the ḥadīth of Anas ibn Mālik, may God be pleased with him — narrated by al-Bukhārī (Book of Medicine, no. 5777) and Muslim (Book of Greeting, no. 2190) — and it is ṣaḥīḥ, agreed upon; and Abū Dāwūd (no. 4508) narrated it from the ḥadīth of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, in which: "Lift your hands, for it has informed me that it is poisoned"; and the like of it was narrated by Aḥmad from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah. The preserved version turns upon Anas and Jābir.Note (2): The reports interpreting "food" as the slaughtered meat, from Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAṭāʾ, al-Qāsim ibn Mukhaymirah, al-Zuhrī, Rabīʿah, al-Shaʿbī, Makḥūl, and al-Ḥasan: see Jāmiʿ al-Bayān of al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān of al-Qurṭubī at the verse of al-Māʾidah, and Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Muṣannaf Ibn Abī Shaybah in the Book of Slaughtered Meats; these are mutually reinforcing reports, one corroborating another.Note (3): The ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughaffal regarding the sack of fat on the day of Khaybar: narrated by al-Bukhārī (Book of Military Expeditions, Chapter on the Expedition of Khaybar, no. 3153) and Muslim (no. 1772), and it is ṣaḥīḥ, agreed upon.Note (4): The ḥadīth of Anas regarding the bread and rancid fat: narrated by Aḥmad in the Musnad, with its origin in al-Tirmidhī, and its chain is ṣaḥīḥ according to the conditions of Muslim (al-Arnaʾūṭ graded it ṣaḥīḥ).Note (5): The letter of the Prophet ﷺ to the Magians of Hajar: narrated by Mālik in the Muwaṭṭaʾ (Book of Zakāh) from al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and narrated by ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Abū ʿUbayd in al-Amwāl; it is mursal — for al-Ḥasan is a Successor who did not witness the event — but it is corroborated by its established basis in the taking of the jizyah from the Magians.Note (6): The testimony of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf regarding the taking of the jizyah from the Magians of Hajar is established in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Book of Jizyah, nos. 3156–3157). As for the wording "Treat them with the treatment of the People of the Book," it is only in the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik as a mursal, and not in the Ṣaḥīḥ; and the comparison in it concerns only the ruling of taking the jizyah, not the lawfulness of slaughtered meats and marriage, for the text expressly excepted those two.

Chapter Three: Reflections on Contemporary Fatwas and the Reality of Muslims in the West

While treating this question, I perused some of what has been written about it, and perhaps the most important of it is what appeared under the title "The Well-Grounded Opinions on the Ruling of Imported Slaughtered Meats and Flesh." I found in it numerous objections to partaking of the food of the People of the Book; yet the study did not depart, in its foundational treatment, from the totality of what we have mentioned, and all the objections it raised reduce in their causes to the manner in which the slaughter is performed — which is a matter outside the axis of this paper.

What corroborates the position I have adopted is that the academies and juristic bodies concerned with the reality of the West have, for the most part, settled upon the basic lawfulness coupled with due verification. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America addressed the questions of slaughtered meats and foods in its 2012 session, and devoted to them a number of papers on the jurisprudence of mechanical slaughter, vertical cutting, and the methods of slaughtering livestock in the United States; the European Council for Fatwa and Research likewise ruled the slaughtered meat of the People of the Book in the West lawful so long as no impediment is established, in application of the principles of the lifting of hardship and the generality of affliction (ʿumūm al-balwā). This paper of mine is an extension of that course and a refinement of its Qurʾanic foundation, not a departure from it.

What draws attention, however, is that the fatwas arriving from the East examine the question from the standpoint of Muslims in the East partaking of the food of the People of the Book — which is something we have no need of in these regions; for the Muslims there have their own abattoirs, slaughterhouses, farms, and livestock. It is not part of complete jurisprudence to transfer the fatwas issued in an Islamic environment, where the acquisition of lawful meat is readily available, to the reality of Muslim minorities by a mechanical transfer that disregards the differences; for the application of a ruling differs according to capacity, need, and the predominant. This does not mean that need cancels the controls; rather, it means that the muftī who lives where the lawful is easily obtained is not well advised to make his fatwa a general binding standard for one who lives in an environment that differs from his in capacity and in alternatives.

As for the objection of some of our shaykhs to the food of the People of the Book today, on the basis of their atheism or their departure from the root of the religion of their faith — I see nothing more grievous against the Muslim than their claim of a son for God, or the attribution by some of them of poverty or a tied hand to God the Sovereign — exalted is He, and high above what they say. Yet, with all of this and other things of which the Qurʾan has informed us, God has preserved for them the particularity of their designation and considered the root of their religion. We affirm that the verse of al-Māʾidah is among the last to be revealed; so if there be any abrogation, it is the abrogating; and if there be any specification of a generality or restriction of an absolute, it has precedence in that — especially as it was coupled with another matter, namely marriage to the women of the People of the Book, concerning which the people of the East and the West did not disagree. We shall take the religion only as a single whole, and we shall not resemble those who believe in part of the Book and disbelieve in part.

Chapter Four: The Effect of the Contemporary Mechanism of Slaughter Upon the Ruling (As a Prelude to the Eligibility of the Slaughterer)

We have already established that the people of every region must verify the method by which slaughter is performed among them; and if it conflicts with the root of what God described, abstention from it is preferable — "not because it belongs to the People of the Book, but because of the method that is followed." This chapter is a refinement of that statement, lest it be understood that establishing the eligibility of the People of the Book is, by itself, sufficient to rule something lawful absolutely. For the eligibility of the slaughterer is one condition, and the mechanism of slaughter is another condition independent of it.

The Qurʾanic foundation: The root of this matter is the opening of the verse of al-Māʾidah itself: ﴿Forbidden to you are: carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, that which has been dedicated to other than God, the strangled, the beaten to death, the fallen, the gored, and that which a wild beast has devoured — except that which you have slaughtered properly﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 3]. He, Glorified be He, forbade the strangled and the beaten to death — and contemporary stunning, by electric shock or by the captive-bolt pistol, is a form of beating and strangling — then He excepted ﴿except that which you have slaughtered properly﴾. This indicates that the beaten animal, if it is reached while life remains in it and is then slaughtered properly, becomes lawful; but if it dies from the beating before lawful slaughter, it is carrion that no eligibility of the slaughterer can render lawful, whoever he may be, Muslim or Scriptuary. Thus the single verse (al-Māʾidah) combined the two conditions of this chapter: the mechanism of lawful slaughter in its opening (verse 3), and the eligibility of the slaughterer in His saying ﴿And the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you﴾ (verse 5).

The reality of the mechanism in America according to federal law: The slaughter of livestock is regulated by the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (1958/1978; 7 U.S.C. §§1901–1907), which stipulated in section (1902) two methods, both of them "humane" and recognized in law: (a) stunning the animal and rendering it insensible before its slaughter; or (b) slaughter in accordance with religious ritual — Jewish or any other religion — by rendering the animal unconscious through cerebral anemia resulting from the simultaneous severance of the two carotid arteries by a sharp instrument; and this second is, almost to the letter, the very Sharʿī lawful slaughter. Section (1906) likewise stipulated the exemption of religious slaughter, and the preparation of the animal preceding it, from the requirement of stunning, in safeguarding of religious freedom. As for poultry, it is not subject to this Act at all; rather, it is governed by the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) and the regulations of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which do not require its stunning and expressly exempt religious slaughter from it.

Two splendid things emerge from the text of the law. The first is that the Sharīʿah has not been placed in hardship in this land; for complete Sharʿī slaughter without stunning is lawful in law by the text of section (1902/b) — indeed the law itself counted it a humane method standing in its own right — and in this is a testimony from the framers of the law to the mercy of Sharʿī lawful slaughter, worthy of being noted and appreciated; and this opens the door wide to the establishment of Islamic slaughter enterprises. The second is that our Jewish brethren have invested in this religious exemption through the kosher supervision disseminated throughout their slaughterhouses generally, and we are more deserving of the like of that.

Applying the principle of the predominant to the mechanism: The predominant herein differs according to the category. As for cattle and the like, what predominates in commercial slaughterhouses is their stunning with the penetrating captive-bolt pistol before slaughter; and the animal afterward is usually alive with an unstable life, finished off by slaughter and the flowing of blood, the locus of lawfulness being the reaching of its lawful slaughter while life remains in it, as the verse of al-Māʾidah indicated. Resolution No. 95 (3/10) of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy detailed the controls of this: the principle is that the lawful slaughter be completed without stunning; the stunned animal's slaughter is lawful if the continuation of its life until the completion of its lawful slaughter is verified; and what dies by reason of the stunning before its slaughter is not lawful — including the chicken that dies by electric shock before slaughter. As for poultry, what predominates is its shock in an electrified water bath with parameters intended to paralyze the bird, not to kill it, and then it is slaughtered; so the predominant herein remains the reaching of lawful slaughter, with the obligation of verification in slaughterhouses where the contrary is established.

The criterion of balance: Whoever held to lawfulness absolutely, without regard to the mechanism, has dropped the qualification of lawful slaughter that the verse stipulated; and whoever held to prohibition absolutely, merely on account of the corruption of the beliefs of the People of the Book, has dropped the text of al-Māʾidah. The middle path is what we have established. And the fruit of the refinement: that whatever is established in a particular slaughterhouse — the death of the animal therein before its lawful slaughter, or the occurrence of the slaughter upon other than the locus of lawful slaughter — its meat is prohibited from the standpoint of the mechanism, not from the standpoint of the religion of the slaughterer — for it falls under the category of carrion, not under the category of the slaughter of the Scriptuary; and what is other than that remains upon the aforementioned principle of the lawfulness of the slaughter of the People of the Book by the principle of the predominant, while the door of scrupulous piety (waraʿ) remains open for whoever wishes to take precaution for his religion, without censure of the one who avails himself of the dispensation.

Chapter Five: Applying the Qurʾanic Text to the Western Reality (The Principle of the Predominant and the Jurisprudence of the Means)

We know that American society at large affiliates with the Christian religion, and that everyone who does not affiliate with it is counted among the minorities. It is well known that the jurists build rulings upon the prevailing predominant, and do not attach them, by analogy, to what is rare and uncommon. The predominant in American society is Christianity, then Judaism, then Islam, then the remainder of the sects; and the principle of ruling by the predominant keeps us within the framework of the inquiry into the lawfulness of the food of the People of the Book. Nevertheless, one must take note that the predominance of Christianity within the general population does not necessarily entail its predominance within the workforce of slaughterhouses and the meat industry; so alongside the population predominance one must look to the industrial and regulatory indicators, the system of the slaughterhouse, and who undertakes the slaughter therein. Whoever deviates from that is not analogized upon in the general ruling, and the ruling on individual cases remains for each according to his knowledge of what he experiences.

I hold — and God knows best — that, in the general ruling, the principle of blocking the means (sadd al-dharāʾiʿ) is not to be invoked in a manner that leads to constriction. For the principle, though it is a truth whose application sound reason necessitates, its application to what predominantly leads to the forbidden is one matter, while its application to what is doubtful or in which the two possibilities are equal is a locus of independent reasoning (ijtihād). As for weak means and remote suspicion, the principle ought not to be applied to them so that they are blocked; for what counts is the predominant, and these in the predominant do not lead to the reprehensible, so prohibiting them is a kind of constriction and an excess in the application of blocking the means.

I am not, by this, one who makes light of the gravity of the issue; but I fear that we might constrict the Muslims in one question, so that other questions, more important and more perilous, slip from their hands. For God has stationed us in this land at the frontier of guarding the religion, the religiosity of the people, and their drawing near to the landmarks of their faith. And the employment of the principle of blocking the means beyond what is sanctioned by the people of knowledge may open a window proclaiming that the Muslims are people of severity and bigotry — which the Muslim communities can no longer bear any more of. For the means that must be blocked is the near step that leads to the reprehensible with certainty or with preponderant likelihood; whereas as for the remote steps, between which and the forbidden there are lesser steps, their prohibition on the pretext of blocking the means is itself a means to severity and constriction that must be blocked.

The prohibition of the means that lead to the forbidden definitely or predominantly is of the order of prohibiting the instruments, not the ends; and therefore what is prohibited of this kind becomes permissible when there is a preponderant need. As Ibn Taymiyyah said: "What is prohibited for the sake of blocking the means is done for the sake of a preponderant benefit"; and as al-Qarāfī and Ibn al-Qayyim detailed: that what is prohibited for the means becomes permissible for a preponderant benefit. Indeed, al-Qarāfī established that the means, just as it must at times be blocked, must at times be opened; and Ibn ʿĀshūr noted that the Sharīʿah, just as it blocked the means of corruption, opened the means of benefits and gave them the ruling of obligation. The opening of the means (fatḥ al-dharāʾiʿ) was not a locus of disagreement among the scholars; rather, the disagreement was over its blocking; and for that reason it was counted among the proofs in the view of Mālik and Aḥmad.

Accordingly, the ruling on what enters the local markets in the United States is, in principle, that which predominates among the majority of those who work therein, and they are, in origin, of the totality of the People of the Book whose lawful slaughter and food God has made lawful. So if the Muslim attains certainty, by direct sight or by decisive report, that the one who practices the slaughter in what he eats is neither a Muslim nor a Scriptuary, then he has his special case, which is not analogized upon the rest of the members of society. And until God makes available a group of Muslim businessmen who undertake slaughter enterprises conforming to the Sharīʿah and the true alternative becomes available, the matter remains within the framework of permissibility, by what God has facilitated of the root of the Law, and by what predominates of the state of society in their being People of the Book whose food is lawful for us.

Chapter Six: Is It a Condition of Considering Them People of the Book That They Adhere to Their Book and the Teachings of Their Religion?

The consideration of the root of the religion is the locus of our inquiry in ruling on their slaughtered meat; for no society is devoid of those who hold fast to the root of the religion. We have been tested in our own Muslim societies by those who have strayed from the root of the religion, abandoning prayer, fasting, zakāh, and pilgrimage, and committing indecencies and grave sins; yet we do not pronounce all of these to be disbelievers, so long as there issues from them no denial of what is known of the religion by necessity. Through experience and reality you come to realize that everyone who affiliates with a religion affirms what is in it, even if he does not act upon it, or upon part of it.

The aim of this analogy is not to equate the disbelief of the People of the Book with the transgression of the disobedient among the Muslims; between the two stations there is a manifest difference that is not hidden. The aim, rather, is to draw attention to the fact that weakness of religiosity, or the spread of disobedience, does not by itself remove the legal designation upon which the rulings have been built, unless it be established that the person or the body has moved from that description to another description that affects the ruling. For the transformation of religion into a set of rites and observances — such as the performance by some Muslims of the Friday prayer, or their attendance at the prayer of the ʿĪd, or their gathering for funerals — does not confer upon them the hue of the religion, while at the same time it does not remove them from its fold. Thus we have come to need an inquiry into the difference between religion (al-dīn) and religiosity (al-tadayyun), which is what the Lord of the worlds drew attention to when He said: ﴿O you who believe, why do you say what you do not do?﴾ [al-Ṣaff: 2], which is the address shared with that with which God addressed the Children of Israel: ﴿Do you order people to righteousness and forget yourselves?﴾ [al-Baqarah: 44].

For religion, with its firm tenets and roots, stands within Islam; its worth is not diminished by the violations practiced by some of its followers. It is settled in our hearts, His saying: ﴿And no bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another; and We never punish until We have sent a messenger﴾ [al-Isrāʾ: 15]. God has informed us of what the people of Judaism and Christianity attached to their religions, and He knew that of them and yet preserved for them, in their totality, their designation and their title. It remains for us to live under the shelter of the shared injunction: ﴿And We have certainly enjoined upon those who were given the Scripture before you, and upon you, that you fear God﴾ [al-Nisāʾ: 131], and to say that their deviation from the roots of their religion does not preclude eating with them or partaking of their slaughtered meat, in accordance with what has been detailed. This ruling also encompasses the slaughter of the people of the misguided sects, the one who is a transgressor by a grave sin, and that whose abandonment is a locus of disagreement as to the disbelief of the one who abandons it.

Practical Guidelines for the Muslim in America (The Fruit of the Study)

1. The principle regarding the slaughter of the Muslim and the Scriptuary is lawfulness, if lawful slaughter is verified and no recognized impediment is established.
2. Jews and Christians do not exit from the name of the People of the Book merely by what is among them of distortion, disbelief, or weakness of adherence; for the inquiry concerns the root of the ruling pertaining to food, not the soundness of belief.
3. If the Muslim knows, by specification, that the slaughterer is an idolater or irreligious, or that a particular body is predominantly served in its slaughter by such persons, he does not act upon the principle of lawfulness in that particular case.
4. If it is established that the animal dies by electric shock, strangulation, or the instrument before slaughter, eating it is not permitted; for the problem lies in the absence of lawful slaughter, not in the religion of the slaughterer.
5. Verification is required to the extent of one's capacity and the available indicators, not in a manner of obsessive scruple (waswasah) nor the imposition of what cannot be borne.
6. The existence of a reliable lawful alternative is preferable and more clearing of liability, where it is readily available without hardship; but it does not render other than it forbidden merely by its existence.
7. The fatwas of Muslim lands, where the lawful is readily available, are not transferred to the reality of minorities save after a jurisprudence of the differences in need, the predominant, and alternatives.
8. The Islamic institutions in the West must work to establish reliable lawful alternatives, rather than making the absence of an alternative a cause for a permanent constriction upon the people.

Conclusion: Findings and Recommendations

In closing, we praise God who guided us to this, and we would not have been guided had God not guided us.

The most salient findings:

1. The Qurʾan distinguished between the People of the Book and the polytheists in naming and in ruling; the conjunction between them in numerous verses requires differentiation, and it is a differentiation that establishes the continuation of the description "People of the Book" and the specific rulings built upon it. What has come of describing some of them as disbelievers or polytheists establishes the creedal judgment upon what they have innovated, but does not entail the cancellation of the Qurʾanic designation in the chapter of transactions.
2. The designation "People of the Book" remains theirs in the Qurʾan, together with the deviations it has related of them; and upon this are built the rulings of eating together and intermarriage specific to them.
3. The consensus is settled upon the basic lawfulness of their slaughtered meat by the text of the verse of al-Māʾidah, and the related disagreement is only in the secondary branches: such as hearing an invocation other than the name of God, the Christians of Banū Taghlib, and the fats forbidden to them.
4. It is not a condition, in considering them among the People of the Book in this chapter, that every individual adhere to the teachings of his religion; for what counts is the root of the general religious affiliation, not the degree of individual religiosity, while the manifest creedal difference between the disbelief of the People of the Book and the transgression of the disobedient among the Muslims remains.
5. The application of the ruling to the American markets is built upon the principle of the predominant together with the indicators; so when there is detailed ignorance of the state of the slaughterer, recourse is had to the general predominant and the industrial and regulatory indicators; and it is not valid to expand the blocking of the means in a manner that constricts the communities without warrant, while personal scrupulous piety remains for whoever wishes it, without censure of the one who avails himself of the dispensation.
6. The eligibility of the slaughterer is one condition, and the method of slaughter is another, independent condition; so whatever is established to involve the death of the animal before its lawful slaughter is prohibited on account of the method, not on account of the religion of the slaughterer, in accordance with what the resolutions of the juristic academies have detailed.

The recommendations:

1. The counsel to every Muslim is to observe the priorities in partaking of his food, and not to move from one stage to the next until he has exhausted the avenues of the first.
2. Urging some Muslim businessmen to establish enterprises that serve the Muslim community in America in a manner that guarantees — at the very least — the mention of God over every slaughtered animal.
3. Providing Muslim supervisors over slaughter in public slaughterhouses, just as there exist for non-Muslims delegates who certify the slaughter, as the Jews do in most of their localities, investing in the religious exemption that federal law guarantees.
4. Preparing a practical, accessible juristic guide for the Muslims of America that distinguishes between the root of the ruling on the slaughtered meat of the People of the Book and the questions of industrial slaughter and certification accreditations.
5. Forming local committees in the states and major cities to communicate with slaughterhouses and companies and to verify the methods of slaughter.
6. Adopting a balanced juristic discourse that combines individual scrupulous piety with general facilitation, and that does not transform personal precaution into a collective obligation.

I ask God Most High to grant us and the Muslims success in that wherein lies goodness, right guidance, and direction, and to forgive me my shortcoming.

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