Halal
and
Haram

You know,

an understanding of the words Halal and Haram,

Allowed and Forbidden,

spreads right through any understanding of the Deen.

As we think of what is good and what is bad in our behaviour

we have these two words

to help us find our way around the world in which we live,

And because all the things that Allah has created,

and the good that comes from them,

are for humankind to use,

for something to be called Haram

it has to be forbidden by a clear verse of the Qur'an

or a clear order from Muhammad the Messenger.

So because the number of clear instructions is very small,

the number of Forbidden things is very small,

and because the number of possibilities in Creation is limitless,

the number of allowed things is vast.

Forbidding something which is Allowed is thought to be

so bad that it is considered similar to Shirk,

which is the Arabic word for associating partners with God.

So the great lawyers in Islamic history always tried

to avoid making judgements as to what is Haram,

out of fear of making an error

and saying that something Halal was Haram

and vice versa.

Actually the word Haram has more than one meaning

as well as the legal meaning of Forbidden.

It also means Sacred or Holy,

as in the sacred months, or sacred places,

the best known of which are the Holy Mosques in Makkah, Madinah, and Jerusalem,

in which it is forbidden to take life

except that of poisonous or dangerous creatures.

It is easy to see why Muslim lawyers used to be so afraid to call things Haram,

because in the Qur'an words that come from the root H-R-M occur more than eighty times,

but the actual word Haram is only found twenty-five times,

and twenty-four of those times it means sacred or holy.

The one time that the Qur'an uses the word to mean Forbidden

is when Allah commands us not to make up what is Halal and Haram.

But nowadays in the Muslim world it seems that

the word Haram is used for anything that anyone thinks is wrong,

whereas in quite the opposite way

the word Halal is rarely used for anything other than food,

and that is quite a different story.

What kinds of food should we avoid?

What if there's no alternative?

Can we eat with our non-Muslim neighbours?