12-21-2004, 08:47 AM
Assalam alaikum All
Pig's Skin
Question: What are some of your opinions on the usage of wearing a leather jacket made out of pork skin. I bought this jacket by mistake and fund out it was prok afterwards..I have gotten diferent answers .......is this haram to wear it?
The Answer:
By Sheikh Dr. Khalid M. al-Mâjid, Professor of Islamic Law
You may not use pig’s skin, whether in dry leather items like wallets or in soft leather items like water skin for the following reasons:
1. Pig is impure for Allah’s saying : “Say(O Muhammad) : I find not in that which has been revealed to me anything forbidden to be eaten by one who wishes to eat, unless it be carrion or blood poured forth ( by slaughtering or the like ) or the flesh of swine( Pork) ; for that surely is impure” and the pronoun in the phrase “for that surely” refers to pork, as stated by Imam al-Shâfi`î.
2. It is filth in and of itself. Allah says: “And He forbids them from abominations.”
3. Tanning, which is a condition to make lawful the use of the skins of unslaughtered animals by the consensus of the jurists. As for the skins of animals which are not allowed to be eaten, there is a difference of opinion among the scholars. The strongest opinion is that tanning does not purify other than the skin of the animals which are permissible to eat, had they been properly slaughtered, such as cows and sheep. This is the opinion that has been related from `Alî and Ibn Mas`ûd. This can also be extracted from what was related by Imam Ahmad that Ibn Abbâs said : “A domestic animal (actually a sheep that had been kept as a house pet) belonging to Maymûnah died. The Prophet ( peace be upon him) said : “Why you did not use its skin? Why don’t you tan it, because tanning its skin is like slaughtering it properly.”
[it is an authentic hadîth but it has been related by some with a different wording. It has been related by Abû Dâwûd, al-Nisâ’î , al-Bayhaqî, and Ibn Hibbân from al-Jawn b. Qatâdâ from Salamah b. al-Mahbaq as “The tanning of skin is like slaughtering it.” Ibn Hajar declared it authentic.]
Al-Shawkânî said: His (the Prophet, peace be upon him) explains that the phrase: “like slaughtering it” means that tanning purifies it and makes it permissible in the same way that slaughtering does. This is an indication that the dead animal’s skin does not become lawful by tanning except that of animals which are allowed to be eaten by legal slaughtering.
4. The hadith related by Abû Dawûd and al-Nasâ`î that al-Miqdâm bin M`adi Karib told Mu`âwiyah “I ask you by Allah, do you know that the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade the wearing of the skins of predatory animals and using them for saddles? He answered: “Yes”. There are many other narrations that support the meaning of this hadîth.
Since the skin of predatory animals is forbidden, then the skin of the pig is even more severely prohibited, since it is filth in and of itself.
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