Dr. Hüseyin Kâmi BÜYÜKÖZER
Allah (C.C) has created everything in the universe for man. However, some substances are restricted and some are prohibited. There are different reasons for the prohibition of a substance. Some of them are forbidden because Allah (C.C) forbids them, some are forbidden because Allah (C.C) forbids them for a certain time and people, and some are forbidden because they are harmful to human health.
Nutrition, and therefore foodstuff, is one of the indispensable natural and basic needs of human beings. For this reason, it has been of interest not only to many branches of science, but also to religions, including Islam. The reason for this is that nutrition is closely related to human physical and mental health, human rights, and even social order in some aspects.
Before Islam, there was no abstinence from food and drink among the Arabs. They ate everything, even carrion and insects. They did not eat only some animals dedicated to idols, and they considered it permissible to slaughter them. If the child was born dead, both men and women could eat it, but if it was born alive, only the man could eat it. There were many other similar idolatrous customs. Because of this urgent situation that needed to be corrected, the verses about halal and forbidden began to be revealed in Mecca.
Islam has followed a balanced path regarding halal and haram. Since feeding with halal food is important in Islam, all Muslims should show sensitivity in determining halal and haram. Because nutrition affects the personality, religious life and worship as well as the physical structure of the human being. The Qur’an’s command to eat halal and clean things and to do good deeds afterwards is meaningful in terms of explaining the relationship between nutrition and worship.
In addition, the Prophet’s encouragement of halal food and his statement that the prayers and worship of those who do not eat halal food will not be accepted makes it necessary to examine the issue carefully. The Qur’an’s general and principled statement that eating good and clean things is halal and eating unclean and bad things is haram while listing some foods that are halal and haram shows that efforts should be made to determine what is clean and unclean.
Islamic jurists have developed some criteria for determining halal and haram in general and halal and non-halal food products in particular. In fact, the authority to determine halal and haram belongs to Allah. Although the servants are obliged to obey Allah’s commands and prohibitions, they are not forbidden, but rather encouraged, to think and research on what they may be, considering that each of the commands and prohibitions of Islam has a reasonable meaning and reason.
The primary purpose of the prohibitions on food is to protect the physical and mental health of human beings. The eating and drinking of substances that are harmful to the physical and mental health of human beings is considered haram in religion. Eating and drinking intoxicating and narcotic substances are also among the prohibitions of Islam. Accordingly, a number of criteria have been determined in order to reach a definite conclusion on halal and haram foods. We can itemise them in the following order:
1. Relevant Ayah and Hadiths criterion,
2. The criterion of wisdom in God’s creation,
3. Cost-benefit criterion,
4. Clean and dirty being criteria,
5. The criterion of abomination and brutality in its nature,
6. Slaughtering criteria,
7. Feeding type criterion,
8. Criterion of variation
9. Tradition and custom criteria,
10. Wastage and public weal criteria
