Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #197 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 12 Jan 2021 › Segment 10 of 43
Are king prawns halal?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith madhab mazhab school of law madhahib mazahib madhaahib hanafite hanafiyyah muftis halaal permitted lawful haraam makrooh makruh tanzihi disliked mubah mubaah dalil daleel adillah adilla proof jahannam jahanam jahannum koran quraan al-quran sura soorah surat suwar soora chapter ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat wahy wahi wahee madinah madina al-madinah madeenah yathrib salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greeting al-din ad-deen ad-din religionAre king prawns halal? Everything from the sea, in the school of Medina
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This segment44:32 to 49:28 · 4 min 56 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenYes, prawns are halal: in the school of Medina everything from the sea is halal, and only the pig is haram by its nature.
In more detail
A super chat says the questioner has been told king prawns are not halal and asks what Islam says. Mufti Abu Layth says Islam says quite obviously that they are permissible: in the school of Medina everything in the sea is halal, based on the hadith about the sea. He says the Hanafi school ran into a conundrum over sea creatures that are not technically fish, such as squid and prawns, calling them makruh and some makruh tahrimi, which he jokingly glosses as haram in all but name. He invites the questioner to learn about the school of Medina, in which every animal is halal by its nature except the pig, with things such as animals sacrificed to other gods being situational, citing the verse 'I do not find in what was revealed to me anything forbidden' which names only the pig among creatures.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedI've been told king prawns aren't halal. What does Islam say?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says that in Islam everything in the sea is halal, according to the school of Medina.
“so in islam everything in the sea is halal okay that's according to the school of medina”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine44:32 to 49:28 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
being just and revelation there was no contradiction this is not a and in many ways this kind these kind of hadiths are to me and an encouragement to show that the deen ought to be very natural to our lives okay it should never be this kind of artificial impediment that's to me and and i don't know if that makes sense to you guys but yeah i thought i'd share
that with you right so um let me just take a look there's a all right adnan ashraf you're doing it with the super chat much love much love salaam mr jolly sub mr jolly all right so my question is i've been told king prawns aren't halal rather what does islam say quite obversely islam says they are permissible
are they halal or not being told anything which doesn't have a backbone isn't halal [Laughter] right anything which doesn't actually have a bone but may give the perception that it has a bone it's
just the hanafis who kind of had a bit of a you know they kind of mixed up the codification and and they tried to get very systematic with the with the dean so in islam everything in the sea is halal okay that's according to the school of medina now what um because the hadith said about the baja about the sea
not if a corpse kind of starts floating but you get the you get now the hanafi madhhab said well okay that's fish but then they fell into a kind of scientific conundrum where they said well what about certain species that are in the sea but ain't really fish certain kind of mammalian species or other things like squids and prawns and they're not technically a fish
so they then were like uh you know what we'll call this macro discouraged and then some said we'll call it makruta hariman they said since you're going for it you might as well go for it so which basically means it's kind of haram which basically means you shouldn't do it but if you do do it you are going to go to hell but we're not going to call it haram we're going to call it that's the actual definition of the hanafiya so yeah you have my sympathies in brief you can jump ship
and start learning about the school of medina and life will just become so much easier it is amazing that that how food is just so simple in the school of medina every every single thing is halal all birds of the sky or anything to do with the sea all animals everything is halal except pig and then culture dictates what you can have obviously you know there's things like if they've been sacrificed for other gods and stuff like that that's different but that's circumstantial it's
it's not dispositional it's situational you think mufti can't get technical so it's more to do with the the situation but actually by its disposition only pig is haram that's a very straightforward and that's based on the verse of the quran
that i don't say i do not find anything haram upon somebody wishes to eat except and then it mentions foods that are offered for the gods or if they're already dead but then the only creature it mentions is pig cool i hope that makes sense uh right is it halal to wear earrings as males
as jordan peterson would say well i believe the biological markers are relevant man please watch my video on it it's a very detailed video watch it i go into the backdrop i go into all the evidence check it out people idris you're doing it much love uh who is surah munafikun actually referring to appreciate a clarification on this okay if uh if you'd like a more detailed uh clarification then let me uh
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-01-12-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/10/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, January 12). Are king prawns halal? [Video, segment 2021-01-12-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/10/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Are king prawns halal?" Video, segment 2021-01-12-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 12, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/10/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-01-12-S10, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Are king prawns halal?}}, year = {2021}, month = {1}, date = {2021-01-12}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/10/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/10/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-01-12-S10, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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