The Cleaning of the Chicken: The Boiling-Water Test

The problem, where there is one, lies in how the chicken is cleaned afterward. According to the Aḥnāf, if the chicken is put into boiling water immediately after slaughter, to relax the body and let the feathers come out easily, the chicken becomes najis and cannot be eaten, because the heat cooks the skin and everything else along with it. But if the water is not hot enough to burn the fingers, and does no more than that — not cooking the chicken instantly — then it is permissible. Most of the Australian poultry industry is regulated, and the conditions under which it operates can be found out by anyone genuinely concerned to know. Some methods use pressurised water fed in from the head end and out through the back, for a quick clean; even here, the ʿulamāʾ say the dubur, the vent, must be taken out separately, since that part is najis and ḥarām, while the rest, being a quick cleansing process, remains clean to use.