CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS

All quadrupeds that seize their prey with their teeth, and all birds which seize it with their talons, are unlawful ( ḥarām ), the Prophet having prohibited mankind from eating them. Hyenas and foxes, being both included under the cla of animals of prey, are unlawful. (This is the doctrine of Abū Ḥanīfah, but ash-Shāfiʿī holds that they are lawful.) Elephants and weasels are also animals of prey. Pelicans and kites are abominable ( makrūh ), because they devour dead bodies. Crows which feed on grain are mubāḥ , or indifferent, but carrion crows and ravens are unlawful. Abū Ḥanīfah says the magpie is indifferent ( mubāḥ ), but the Imām Yūsuf says it is abominable ( makrūh ). Crocodiles and otters and wasps, and, in general, all insects are makrūh , or abominable. The a and the mule are both unlawful. According to Abū Ḥanīfah and Mālik, horse-flesh is unlawful, but ash-Shāfiʿī says it is indifferent. The flesh of hares is also indifferent . No animal that lives in the water, except fish, is lawful. But Mālik allows them. Fishes dying of themselves are unlawful, and so are all animals who are not slain by ẕabāḥ . ( Hidāyah , vol. iv. p. 74.) [ ZABIHAH .] It must be observed that in Muḥammadan law animals are either ḥalāl , “lawful,” or mubāḥ , “indifferent,” or makrūh , “abominable” ( i.e . which is condemned but still is lawful), or ḥarām , “unlawful.”