#563: The ruling on eating Grasscutter
QUESTION
” Assalaam alaikum warahmatullah wa barakaatuh ustadh, pls sir I need clarification on issue of grass cutter if it is halal for Muslims to be eating? Yoruba call it Oya. May Allah reward you abundantly.”
ANSWER
Wa alaykum Salām Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh.
The Grasscutter, also known as Cane Rats are a Specie of Rats that live in river banks and plantations and are very similar to house rats. They are reared today and used to make money.
As the Grass cutter is a specie of Rats, it is Harām to consume it. And this is caused by the fact that it is of the animals we were commanded to kill.
It is recorded by Imām Muslim in his Sahih from ‘Ā’shah – radiyallahu ‘anhā – from the Rasūl – salallāhu alayhi wasallam – that he said:
خمس فواسق يقتلن في الحل والحرم : الحية والغراب الأبقع والفارة والكلب العقور والحديا
“Five vicious animals are to be killed whether resident or in Ihrām: the snake, the hooded crow, the rat, the wild dog and the kite.”
Imām An-Nawawī – rahimahullāh – explained in his Shar’h on Sahih Muslim that the ‘Ulamā agreed that these animals were Harām for consumption.
And Allāh knows best.
Bārakallāhu fīkum
Jazākumullāhu Khayran.
3rd Sha’ban 1439AH
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