#843: Ruling n Cannibalism

843. QUESTION:

“Asalamuh alaykum ya sheikh! I want to know the position of Islam on cannibalism with evidences and reasons, because there are some Islamic preachers in our land that say, a person can eat the flesh of human if condition warrant it or out of necessity and as they say, “Necessity knows no law.” For example, if they are travelling or setting out for Jihad and their provisions that they possess run out completely and they don’t have any other avenues, they can eat the dead amongst themselves or the one who is weakest among them that is on the verge of dying because of the hunger and thirst or the dead amongst the disbeliever that they fought. And they use Imam Shafii, ibn Hazm, Imam Qurtubi as an evidence. Please could you throw some light on that issue for me and others as well so that my doubt and others like me, should be quelled? May Allaah be with you ya Sheikh. Ameen!”

ANSWER:

Wa Alaykum Salām Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh

Alhamdulillāh

Firstly, the term Necessity knows no law is not from Islām and can never be; rather it’s a Latin Maxim attributed to the writer Publilius Syrus (d 43 BC), and this Maxim does not conform to the Precept of Darūrah in Islām. This is because Necessity is bound by laws and rules in itself within the confines of Islām.

The Ulamā of Islām have affirmed that for a Harām thing to be done for the interest of protecting oneself from Harm (Darūrah), it must meet the following conditions:

One, you must be sure that there is no other way of protecting yourself from that harm except by doing that Harām. In other words, if there exist other means of attaining same, it becomes Harām to engage in that Harām and the ruling in that place is sin if it is committed.

Two, you must be sure that by engaging in that Harām deed, the interest you want to protect is guaranteed, otherwise, it is not permissible.

Good example here:

A person is faced with severe thirst and the lack of food in a wild desert; there is nothing available for his drink except for an alcoholic drink. For his consumption of that drink to be permissible, he must be sure that:

One, there is no other alternative to this drink that can quench his thirst.

Two, that in his consumption of this drink, there is sufficient certainty that his thirst will disappear and his life secured thereby. That is clear.

Likewise, know that the Ulamā all agree that Necessities must be valid only to the extent of it’s Necessity

They call it:
الضرورات تقدر بقدرها

Thus, like in the example above, if the intake of a sip is sufficient to repel the harm he fears from the intense thirst he experiences, it is not permissible for him to take two sips.

And Allāh knows best.

Before we leave this juncture, it is important to state that some of the Ulamā, such as Shaykh Muhammad bn Sālih Al-‘Uthaymīn have argued that the scenerio we depicted above does not meet the condition of Darūrah because they say it is evident that the intake of alcohol does not quench thirst. That implies that the second condition we referred above does not hold, and Allāh knows best.

Darūrāt hold other important restrictions that is important to explore; however those are beyond the scope of this response.

We only intended to hint at the error in that statement and we did, from Allāh comes Tawfīq, amīn.

As for cannibalism to which your referred to, we responded to question 247 in our Telegram Channel the ruling of eating one’s own flesh for the need of survival.

We mentioned that the Ulamā are at a consensus that it is not permissible to resort to the body of a dead human or the body of a dead pig in the presence of the body of a dead animal whose consumption was Halāl. This is because there was no initial forbiddance to eat the body of that Halāl animal whereas forbiddance is agreed upon for eating humans and pigs for instance. Thus there is agreement on the impermissibility of resorting to that where there is alternative.

Then they differed on the Permissibility of taking the dead human for food in places of necessity.

We mentioned that the stronger position, and it is the position held by the Mālikī and the Dhāhiriyyah School, is that it is not permitted eating in any situation. Al-Qurtubī rahimahumullāh mentioned that in his Tafsīr.

And that the weaker position is that held by Ash-Shāfi’ī and some of the Imāms in his Madh’hab that it is permissible provided a person whose killing is not permissible is not killed for that purpose.

For this reason, the mention in your question that a people that are travelling may kill the weaker of them for the purpose of consuming him is entirely strange to the Rules of Islām.

Firstly because the Ulamā are at a consensus that a Muslim must not prefer his life over the life of another Muslim by killing him to save his own life.

Secondly because none of the Ulamā mentioned this permissibility.

For further reading, you may refer to our answer to question 247 in our Telegram Channel and to Tafsīr Al-Qurtubī rahimahumullāh.

Bārakallāhu Fīkum

Jazākumullāhu Khayran

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