The Region Test, Recalled, and the Rule Against Rumour

As already established, Islamic law reads a locality's religion from its houses of worship: a town filled with Buddhist temples is judged Buddhist, one filled with synagogues Jewish, one filled with churches Christian — and this holds regardless of how many of its residents actually practise, since in every generation there are practising and non-practising Jews and Christians alike; that a person only attends once a year makes no difference to the reading. But still they are Ahl al-Kitāb.

This is a fiqh rule: assumptions do not turn an unknown condition into ḥarām. Kullu shayʾin mubāḥ, everything is permissible unless it is shown otherwise. A rumour, hearsay, information passed on that cannot be adequately substantiated, is not evidence in the sharīʿah and cannot be acted upon; clear evidence is required. Someone may hear that in New Zealand, say, the animals are not killed properly but strangled instead — is there any proof of this? An internet site, perhaps — but who wrote it, and why? Someone hoping to damage New Zealand's export industry, an Australian competitor, or a genuinely reliable source? Consider the people who campaign against KFC: their chickens, it is said, are monstrous, raised in cages with oversized beaks and eyes and skinny legs, made to grow from chick to chicken in less than four to ten days^****, with photographs to match, all put out by the Vegetarian Society of Australia — people who do not want anyone eating meat at all and who produce these controversial claims to that end. Hearsay of this kind, repeated from person to person, does not turn something ḥalāl into ḥarām, or ḥarām into ḥalāl. Only clear, complete evidence changes the ruling; an assumption about an unknown condition does not.