Where, however, the situation is unknown—whether the animals are being slaughtered in the prescribed Islamic manner or otherwise—there is no doubt that the meat is forbidden, for the side of prohibition takes precedence. This is the position articulated by the scholars, among them al-Nawawi, Shaykh al-Islam (Ibn Taymiyyah), Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Rajab, Ibn Ḥajar, and others.

7 – The legal maxim states: whenever both a permissive factor and a prohibitive factor are present, the prohibitive factor prevails. This is supported by the hadith, “Leave that which causes you doubt for that which does not cause you doubt” (reported by al-Tirmidhi, 2518), and by the hadith, “When you send your trained dog and then find another dog with it, do not eat, for you pronounced Allah’s name over your dog, but not over the other” (reported by al-Bukhari, 5484; Muslim, 1929).

Ibn Rajab said: “Anything whose original ruling is prohibition—such as private parts or the flesh of animals—does not become lawful except with certain knowledge that proper slaughter or lawful dispatch has taken place. If doubt later arises for some other reason, we revert to the original ruling; what began as prohibited remains prohibited.”

Even if we suppose that in those countries some people do carry out lawful slaughter while others kill by strangulation or blunt force, the meat is still unlawful because of the resulting uncertainty, exactly as the legal maxim requires.