Re: Seafood..
I googled "why are fish halal" and got so many different answers! Some say that only fish with fins and scales are ok, some say that all are ok, some go into the way that the fish die makes them either halal or haram (ie., if it dies in the water without apparent cause then its haram). VERY confusing and no clear answer.
Re: Seafood..
BIB, halal is not a form or particular shape of food, it simply means what is permissible and it is not limited to food. When you ask why is seafood halal, the answer is because Allah SWT has made it permissble for us to consume seafood. What Allah SWT has prohibited us from consuming is haram in simple and unambiguous terms.
Re: Seafood..
Peace BoReD iN BrIsBaNe
I have an answer for this some with substantiation some without ...
There is a hadith in Ibn Majah which states that two types of dead meat are permissible for consumption, locust and fish and two types of blood liver and spleen.
Common sense determines that the methods employed to catch fish and locust will be similar in two areas:
a) They are caught in nets in many numbers at a time
b) During the catching process many will be dead or die in the process, due to suffocation, immobility etc.
So according to common sense trying to slaughter a locust or fish in this respect will lead to a lot of waste food if we have to throw away the dead ones, also there will be a lot of time wasted sifting out dead from not. So on the provisor that these are permissible to eat it explains why they are not required for the rites of slaughter like other animals are.
The blood reasoning:
I have heard too that locust and fish have either limited blood or their blood does not penetrate their flesh like other animals therefore their meat is naturally clean.
The storyline reason (no reference sorry):
I have heard in an extended story that it is because when Ibrahim (AS) threw the knife up after thinking he killed his son the knife in mid flight slit a locust and when landed it went in the water and slit a fish and thereafter those animals were auto-halal. Nice but I'm not sure with this.
Another hadith mentions that salt water is pure and therefore creatures dwelling in it are clean. If purity of environment is the case then that makes sense too because there are some breeds of locust that spend all of their adults lives without touching the ground. Crop ends may be but not the ground.
Other than that ... not everything that is allowed or not in Islam has been given us full reasoning for it. The primary reason for not eating pork is because Allah (SWT) forbade it, only the rationalisation of this injunction shows certain wisdoms in why, but they are not the reasons. In the same sense if some thing is halal for us to eat and a sahih hadith states as such that is REASON enough for us to follow accordingly. We know there is a reason for it, or may be more than one reason, but it may be the case that the reason has not be revealed to us by God.
That is true but the thing is if something is haraam ..it has its reasons for being haraam.. like pork.. their are a number of reasons why it is haraam and so for other meat eating animals.. Hence there would be a reason for the other case aswell.. psyah explained it well .. 
Thanks psyah.. that does make sense .. i shall go fishing now 
That is true but the thing is if something is haraam ..it has its reasons for being haraam.. like pork.. their are a number of reasons why it is haraam and so for other meat eating animals.. Hence there would be a reason for the other case aswell.. psyah explained it well .. :Salute:
If Allah SWT did not give a reason then its better not to delve into reasons for why it is haram or halal, it doesn't take long before someone will put you in a corner based on your reasoning. If a reason is required, then Allah SWT has provided us with it. Though I superficially agree with Br. Psyah on this but do not advocate reasoning on this issue because its reasoning which has led to the expansion of gray areas between halal and haram and produced many ridiculous theories especially among Desi people.
For instance, if your Hindu friend slaughtered a goat for you pronouncing Allah SWT name on it, would you say it is halal? Actually I am also asking this question of Br. Psyah as well.
If Allah SWT did not give a reason then its better not to delve into reasons for why it is haram or halal, it doesn't take long before someone will put you in a corner based on your reasoning. If a reason is required, then Allah SWT has provided us with it. Though I superficially agree with Br. Psyah on this but do not advocate reasoning on this issue because its reasoning which has led to the expansion of gray areas between halal and haram and produced many ridiculous theories especially among Desi people.
For instance, if your Hindu friend slaughtered a goat for you pronouncing Allah SWT name on it, would you say it is halal? Actually I am also asking this question of Br. Psyah as well.
Assalamu'alaikum bro USResident
I think BIB didn't quite understand me. I did say there is a reason and that it was the instruction of Allah (SWT) that is reason enough for the Muslim, but I also said there were WISDOMS which do not exceed in importance other than the basic instruction that such and such is permissible or not. I think we need to balance wisdom with reason. Context can make things easier for us to live our lives, but make things more complicated for the science of determining those contexts. Where possible people should strive to achieve the basic requirements without looking for loopholes. That is a greater position of piety. So in reality I actually agree with you and disagree that I had a better explanation than you rather I think we are saying the same thing.
With regards to your question ... If the Hindu done the sacrifice in my supervision with the slaughter and words in the right way then I will have nothing except my personal biases to overcome for not eating that meat. Yes, I would eat it.
Unless of course there is a clear statement saying that the one doing the sacrifice has to be either a Muslim or from other People of the Book.
Bro
I think now we are on the same page. You are correct, that we can always find some wisdom in it, the most important of which is our submissiveness to the command of Allah SWT. However we should clearly understand the fundamentals that differentiate between the two i.e. halal and haram.
I don’t know if I want to open a pandoras box here but well, anyway. Is it the method of slaughter which makes it halal or the acknowledgement that Allah SWT has provided us this food or both? I have researched this area many a time and have even flip flopped in my opinion sometimes however currently I am steady with what I think I understand. To me, the acknowledgement that this food has been provided by Allah SWT takes priority over the method of kill (with the exception of those specifically mentioned in Quran, specifically Surah Maidah). I say this because I have not come across conclusive evidence that the method of kill or slaughter used by the muslims was any different from other Arabs or non-Arabs of the time. What the Quran did was further restrict a few of the prevalent categories and clarified that all food is a blessing from Allah SWT and that only He SWT should be acknowledged for it.
Peace bro USResident
We need to caution at the same time not to undermine the reasoning that has been given to us in hadith … Such as “the salt water is pure therefore …” this is clearly an appeal to reason within hadith and cannot be sidelined.
In one of the lectures by Shaikh Zaid Shakir he mentioned there was scholar who refrained from eating fish from a river for a period of time because his student dumped some bread that was bought with by impure means. It was not because he thought of it as haram, but rather he put himself on a strict line of caution so as not to suffer the effects of such things in himself.
Islam encourages prudence over the self. A Muslim is one who looks for the haram and halal, but the Muttaqi is one ho protects himself from possible haram and avoids possible halal in case that it is not. It makes his life restricted which coincides with the hadith that states this life for the Mo’min is like a prison, but a paradise for the disbelievers.
When we ask scholars for fatawa regarding issues we do not ask wisely enough. Rather we should say what is or is not permissible and what is better or worse and may be ask them what they themselves do. Often traditional scholars will make things easy for others but be very strict on themselves.
wasnt i shouting the same thing from the rooftop 