Whales, and the Rule for a Dead Fish

Whales might seem an impossible case, but they are named deliberately, because eating one has precedent from the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). A group of Muslims in Jeddah, on the coast, came upon a whale beached and already dead — such a huge fish as they had never seen — and began cutting it into pieces, filling their sacks, even walking inside its stomach cavity, it was so large. Some of the meat was carried all the way to Makkah and brought to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), who was told what had happened; he approved of it, and ate from the whale meat they had brought him. A whale is a mammal rather than a fish, but that makes no difference — it lives in the sea, and may be eaten. The same applies to dolphins, whatever their reputation for beauty owed to too many films, and to eels, which for all that they resemble snakes are still fish.

There is a technical point governing a fish found already dead. If it died while trapped in a confined space — too little water, too little movement or air, as happens when the tide rises and traps a great many fish together, so that they are dying or already dead from the confinement itself — it remains ḥalāl to eat, whether found dead or still alive. The same holds where the fish died because it was struck, or caught and left in a bucket. But a fish found simply floating, dead, with no such explanation — out in open water, in a river or the sea, with plenty of room to swim, yet found belly-up on the surface — is not to be touched: it may be poisoned, or carrying some sickness, and eating it is ḥarām.

There is the account of a phone call to the Medina Halal Meat Butcher, newly opened, from a sister — overheard, and thoroughly amusing at the time. Do you have ḥalāl cow, she asked; yes. Ḥalāl sheep? Yes. Who slaughters them? Such-and-such company, such-and-such company. Do you have ḥalāl fish? Yes, sister. And who slaughters the fish? To that she had no answer, because fish are not slaughtered at all: Bismillāh, Allāhu akbar is said over them, and a fish is ḥalāl the moment it leaves the water.

There is a further case: a large dead fish is found floating belly-up in the ocean — perhaps a whale, a dolphin, or, though far less likely depending on the species, a shark — and by the rule just given it may not be eaten. Cut it open, though, and if there is a live fish inside, jumping about, that fish may be eaten; the same holds for a dead fish found inside, provided its death is explained by the confined space of the larger fish's stomach rather than by poison. What may not be touched is a fish found inside torn into pieces — that is, already half-eaten on its way down — which remains off limits.