Cheese, Rennet, and Pepsin

Rennet is an enzyme; pepsin is an enzyme found in the spleen of animals, not itself a part of the animal, but something of a parasite, extracted from a dead or a living animal without being part of it — not animal, in the reckoning of the ʿulamāʾ who understand this science, except where it comes from a pig, since the pig is najis and ḥarām li ʿaynihi, in itself, and no rennet or pepsin may be extracted from it for use as a culture in cheese or paneer. Muslims have made a considerable issue of this, and vegetable-based rennet has been invented in response — whatever exactly that means, since rennet is rennet.

All of the ʿulamāʾ, including Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) himself, ate cheese; the companions ate cheese; the generations after them ate cheese. The Ottomans and the Seljuks, who held the khilāfa for generations, had their Shaykh al-Islām give fatwā permitting cheese sent from Greece, from Rūm, from Europe, and ate it: unless it can be shown with certainty that the rennet or pepsin in a given cheese comes from lard, from the pig itself, it is ḥalāl according to the ʿulamāʾ, and there is no need to spend hours over an ingredients list asking whether a rennet is animal or otherwise. Some Muslim companies, māshāʾAllāh, have made themselves muftis on this question, issuing fatwās and ḥalāl certificates for a fee, on the claim that cheese is ḥarām unless its rennet is vegetable-based; this is not so, and it goes against the practice of the ʿulamāʾ, the scholars, the imams, and everyone else back to the time of Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him). Anyone who nonetheless prefers vegetable rennet is welcome to it — ahlan wa sahlan — and nobody stops him.