May a Muslim eat meat slaughtered by Christians or Jews?

From the Sabīl library · scholarly review pending

Each answer is an entry of the Sabīl library, shown word for word with its sources. Nobody wrote it for the question, and no machine wrote, shortened or reworded it: the question was matched to the entry that answers it. The library’s scholarly review is still pending. Where the schools differ, the entry says what each holds. For a ruling on your own circumstances, ask a scholar.

05Meat of the Book

وَطَعَامُ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ حِلٌّ لَكُمْ

Wa ṭa‘āmul-ladhīna ūtul-kitāba ḥillun lakum

“The food of those given the Scripture is lawful to you.”

Q 5:5

The verse is decisive that their slaughtered meat is permitted in principle. The disagreement is over whether today’s industrial product still answers to it.

The two positions

Permitting — the verse is general; we are not charged with investigating what we did not witness, and the Companions ate the food of the People of the Book without enquiry. Say Bismillāh and eat.

Withholding — much modern slaughter involves no religious act at all, no name is said, and methods such as killing by electrocution or gas leave the animal dead before any cut. What is described in the verse is then simply absent.

Bukhārī · ṣaḥīḥ — “Say the name of Allah over it, and eat.” Both positions are held by major scholars.

The practical middle: where certified slaughter is available, take it. Where it is not, the traveller and the one under constraint have a valid opinion to rely on. Do not make this a cause of division.

Lines with a dotted edge give the sound of the Arabic, worked out by rule from its vowel marks. They are not from the print titles and have not been reviewed: where one differs from the Arabic, the Arabic is right.

From Ḥalāl Consumables · Open the full title

This is what the library says in general. It is not a ruling on your own case: for that, ask a scholar.

Answered from

Ḥalāl Consumables