Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 126

more precisely defined and systematized,
which are contained in the urān. We
cannot here follow the development of
this process and we shall deal only with
its final results.
The prohibitions concerning food are
part of the vast system of Muslim ethics.
For this reason there are used for them
the usual categories, which include all the
degrees, from obligation to prohibition,
by way of recommendation, indifferent
permission and reprobation. Efforts are
made to state the attitude to be taken in
every possible case, and even in some very
unlikely cases. Procedures are established
to settle doubtful cases, all else failing, by
ordeal: drawing lots to indicate which ani-
mal of a flock has been the object of an
act of bestiality and is therefore impure;
in cases of doubt as to the provenance of
birds' eggs, which would decide whether
they were lawful, to use those whose ends
differ in width.
The categories of the permitted and
the forbidden in this field are (apart from
some exceptions) identical with those of
the clean and the unclean. There fol-
lows from this the obligation to apply to
these cases the general idea of contagion,
of the contaminating power of unclean-
liness, which gives rise to a number of
delicate problems to determine the limits
of this contagion. The milk and the eggs
of unclean animals are obviously unclean;
but does an animal who has drunk wine or
sow's milk, both of them unclean, become
by this act unclean itself? A dog, being
unclean, makes unclean any liquid which
it has begun to lap or game which it has
begun to eat; but there may be another
juridical reason for the prohibition in the
latter case. The question was much dis-
cussed as to how far a mouse (or other
unclean animal ) which had fallen into
a food which was clean caused it to be
unclean. In general it is admitted that the

uncleanliness is transmitted to the whole of
any liquid or fluid matter, but only to the
parts of any solid matter which are near
to the part touched (unless the mouse has
remained there for a long time, according
to the Mālikī Sanūn. The crossing of a
clean with an unclean animal makes their
progeny unclean ( e.g. , the mule).
It became necessary also to lay down the
course to be followed when there arose a
conflict between the system of regulations
concerning food and other principles and
exigencies of social life, and to make gen-
eral rules also for borderline cases. Thus,
suicide being forbidden, man has a duty
to keep himself alive and in good health.
From this is deduced the prohibition of
injurious substances, notably intoxicants.
But in cases of famine and of extreme
necessity, the principle of keeping one's
self alive conflicts with the prohibition of
what is unclean, and it is acknowledged
that the latter must be sacrificed, at least
to the minimum degree necessary to
maintain life. But limits are set, and also
a graduated table of degrees of uncleanli-
ness is established. The question arose and
still arises particularly in relation to medi-
cines prescribed by doctors. In the same
way a compromise is established between
the duty to keep alive and the rights of
property: in certain conditions and within
certain limits it is permissible to seize by
force from a reluctant owner the means
for sustaining one's life. In some cases the
duty of acting humanely towards animals
can also have an influence on what food
is eaten ( e.g. , the recommendation not to
slaughter a sheep which is suckling).
The fih naturally upheld the food pro-
hibitions laid down by the urān, endea-
vouring only to define their scope. The
prohibition of blood, linked with that of
the meat of animals which are dead with-
out having been ritually slaughtered, led
to many developments. It was necessary