Chapter: Foods from the People of the Book and Other Unbelievers That Are Lawful to Eat

What is lawful to us of the food of the People of the Book is, first, the meat of the animals they have slaughtered, and, second, any of their other foodstuffs that are not forbidden to us and that do not themselves require ritual slaughter. Mālik nonetheless disliked eating meat they had slaughtered when meat slaughtered by a Muslim was available, and he disliked their having markets in which they sold such meat; this, may Allah have mercy on him, was out of scrupulous piety. In the same spirit one should avoid the slaughter of a Jew or a Christian when Muslim-slaughtered meat can be obtained—do you not see that it is impermissible for a member of the People of the Book to slaughter a sacrificial animal on behalf of a Muslim? The basic rule, however, is that the slaughtered animals of the People of the Book are lawful, and on this there is no disagreement, for Allah says, “The food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you” (5:5); the scholars understand “food” here to mean their slaughtered meat.

Whatever of their food is unlawful to us is therefore excluded from the scope of this verse. Mālik disliked the rendered fat of the Jews and the meat of camels—and indeed of every claw-footed beast—that they had slaughtered by nahr (the thrust at the base of the neck), but most scholars see no harm in consuming such meat. Likewise, there is no objection to eating the food of idol-worshippers, pagans, Magians, and all other unbelievers who possess no scripture, so long as it is not meat from their own slaughter and does not require ritual slaughter; the only exception is cheese, because it contains rennet taken from carrion. If a child’s father is a Magian and his mother belongs to the People of the Book, Mālik rules that the child follows his father’s status; other scholars say that the meat slaughtered by such a child may not be eaten if either parent is someone whose slaughter is impermissible. Mālik also disliked the food that unbelievers prepare for their festivals, fearing that it might be of the sort over which an invocation has been pronounced.