#8: EATING SNAILS PICKED UP BY A MUSHRIK
” As salam alaykm, please is it allowed to eat food given as gift by a Mushrik? The particular food here is living snails picked by children of a Mushrik, and because they don’t eat it and they know you eat it, they come to give you and you reject at first but their parent plead with you to collect from them. If its not allowed can one consider the children as Muslims and collect or what is the ruling in both cases and in that particular situation. Please treat as URGENT because the snails are with me now. Jazaakallah khairan”
ANSWER
Wa alaykum salaam warahmatullaah wabarakaatuh
Alhamdulillaah!
There is nothing wrong with eating such snails provided they were caught alive. This is the position held by the majority of the Fuqaha’.
It doesn’t matter who was responsible for picking up the snails. They may be mushrikin. What was prohibited for us was to eat the slaughtered meat of the mushrikin, not entirely everything that comes from them.
Imam Ibn Qudaamah Al-Maqdisi – rahimahullaah – said:
“And the ruling of the rest Kuffaar among the worshippers of the idols, the atheists and their others is the same with that of the Magians with respect to the prohibition of consuming their slaughtered meat and their game…”
Al-Qurtubi – rahimahullaah – said in his Tafsir (6/77):
“There is nothing wrong in consuming the food of the People of those (kuffaar) that are not attributed to the Book such as the mushrikin and those that worship idols as long as it is not of what was slaughtered by them…”
We mentioned the snails been caught alive as a condition. This applies to whether it was caught by a Muslim or a non-Muslim.
And we have answered question on this blessed forum – inshaaAllaah – with regards to the ruling of eating snails – twice.
Baarakallaahu feekum
Jazaakumullaahu khayran
