Cheese from calf rennet

11-2-2000 | IslamWeb

Question:

Is it HARAM to have CHEESE made from CALF RENNET?

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Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.
All the scholars are agreed on the lawfulness of eating cheese made from calf rennet if that calf or animal is slaughtered according to the Islamic way. But there is a disagreement among them regarding the rennet of an animal that is not slaughtered according to the Islamic way. Some of them believe that it is lawful basing their argument on some reports that the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) ate the cheese made by the magis and which was mixed with the rennet of animals which were Meytah (dead animals not slaughtered) in the Islamic way. Other scholars, however, believe that it is forbidden basing their argument on the rule that anything that is taken from a Meytah (dead animal not slaughtered in the Islamic way) is Meytah itself. So, we advise you to be very cautious about this and avoid matters where there are divergent views. If you can not do that, take only what you need, as disagreement among scholars of Islam is a benediction in this kind of issue. As for what is taken from a live animal, all the scholars agree that it is lawful because it is taken as a liquid that has nothing to do with the body of the animal it was taken from. Its rule is then the same as the rule of what comes from the stomach of an eatable (in Sharia) animal when it vomits, which is pure like its saliva and spittle. Allah knows best.