VIRUS\nSARS\u2011CoV\u20112 that causes Covid-19 is believed to originate from wildlife sold in\na wet market of Wuhan, China. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although China prohibits the sale of wild animals, a report on 29 June\n2002 by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC journalist in Beijing alleged that \u201ceating\nexotic and wild species is as old as China itself.\u201d In Shanghai 1,000 tons of\nsnakes are consumed annually, while the city of Nanning boasts delicacies of turtle,\ncobra, owl, hawk, monkey, bear, civet cat and pangolin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States of America is the biggest importer of China\u2019s wildlife\nlike fox and otter, ingredients used in medicinal recipe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to man\u2019s desiring exotic meats, Covid-19 pandemic has killed almost\n4 million souls and infected nearly 180 million people globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To prevent the next zoonotic pandemic, there is a useful guidance in Islam\non diet, cleanliness and health. Many verses of the Qur\u2019an identify lawful food\nwith what is \u201ctayyib<\/em>\u201d, meaning clean, pure, nutritious and wholesome\nfoodstuff. \u201cO believers, eat of the good things (tayyib\u0101t<\/em>) which We have\nprovided for you, and be grateful to Allah, if it is only Him that you worship\u201d\n[2:172]; \u201cEat of the things which Allah has provided for you, lawful (halal<\/em>)\nand wholesome (tayyib<\/em>); and fear Allah, in Whom you are believers\u201d\n[5:88]; \u201cwhat is left (lawful) by Allah is better for you (than unlawful one),\nif you are true believers\u201d [11:86].<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is significant that the very last revelation which affirmed the\nperfection of Islam [5:3] came just after verses explaining permissible foods. Professor\nDr Hamidullah, thus, concluded that consuming nutriment which is lawful, pure\nand wholesome is a lynchpin of civilisation striking right into heart and soul,\nwhile eating illicit and harmful food is toxic to spiritual mind and cultured\nlife. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prophet exhorted that \u201cseeking lawful provision is obligatory on\nevery Muslim.\u201d The great al-Ghazali (d. 1111), hence, devoted one specific chapter\n\u201cOn What is Lawful and Unlawful\u201d in his celebrated work Ihya\u2019 \u2018Ulum al-Din<\/em>,\nexplicating that illicit food includes those gotten from abuse of power and\ncorruption. The chapter was translated by Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, a scholar of\nIslamic finance in the USA, and published as 354-page work titled Al-Ghazali\non the Lawful and the Unlawful: Book XIV of the Revival of the Religious\nSciences<\/em> (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2014). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Islam forbids things damaging and harmful to life, health and intellect,\nlike intoxicant, hashish, opium, henbane, poison, and glass. It is unlawful to\neat carrion; filth such as blood, urine and excrement; dog and swine; an animal\noffered to an idol or strangled or had its neck wrung to death, or died of a\nfall from a height or of a wound from the horns of another animal, or had been\ntorn up by some other beast [the Qur\u2019an, 5:4; 2:173; 6:145; 16:115]. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, there is exception for he\nwho is forced by necessity, such as worsening illness or losing life, and left\nwith no choice other than eating unlawful food; he may then eat the necessary\nminimum enough to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Prophet forbade eating donkey and mule. Unlawful too, are predatory\nanimals that prey with fangs or tusks and birds which hunt with talons.\nExamples of the former are the lion, lynx, leopard, wolf, bear, simians,\nelephant and weasal; of the latter, the falcon, hawk and kite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is unlawful in Syariah Law to eat amphibian such as frog and\nreptilian such as crocodile. Also forbidden is to consume disgusting small\nanimals such as ants, flies, cockroaches and scorpions. The Prophet has\nespecially prohibited the killing of ants, bees, hoopoes and sparrow-hawks\n(recorded in Mishkat al-Masabih<\/em>). Apparently, animals whose flesh is not\neaten or unlawful, and beasts who present no danger are not allowed to be\nkilled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Islamic approach in discriminating wholesome foods from harmful ones is based\non integrated knowledge comprising sound religious sciences and zoology. Murtada\nal-Zabidi (d. 1791) referred to work by Ahmad b. al-\u2018Imad al-Aqfahsi entitled Kitab\nfi ma yahillu min al-Hayawanat wa ma la yahillu <\/em>(Book on the Lawful and\nUnlawful Animals). <\/p>\n\n\n\n An even more renowned compendium is by a zoologist-cum-jurist Muhammad\nb. Musa al-Damiri (d. 1405), titled Hayat al-Hayawan<\/em>. This\npara-zoological encyclopaedia includes dietary rules on approximately 1,000\nanimals. Its abridgement by the prolific Jalaluddin al-Suyuti (d. 1505) is\ntitled Diwan al-Hayawan<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Animals which are slaughtered must\nbe treated with utmost kindness and best hygienic practises. The Prophet said,\n\u201cAllah has decreed that everything should be accomplished in a good way; so,\nwhen you kill, use a good method; and when you cut an animal\u2019s throat, you\nshould utilise a good method, for each of you should sharpen his knife and give\nthe animal as little pain as possible\u201d (Mishkat al-Masabih<\/em>).\nSlaughtering with the use of teeth and nails is not allowed, as this inflicts\ntoo much pain (narrated by al-Nasa\u2019i). The Prophet forbade using a catapult: \u201cFlinging\nstones will not hunt the game\u2026but it may break a tooth or gouge out an eye\u201d\n(narrated by Bukhari). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VIRUS SARS\u2011CoV\u20112 that causes Covid-19 is believed to originate from wildlife sold in a wet market of Wuhan, China. Although China prohibits the sale of wild animals, a report on 29 June 2002 by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC journalist in Beijing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}