Question:
Dear Fadhilatusy Shaykh. Assalamu’alaikum wr wb,
I would like to thank you for your kind reply and invitation.
With regards to the subject above, I hope that you my enlighten me about kosher. Can we eat from restaurants which provide kosher menus?
Thank you wassalam,
Al-Faqir
Answer:
Alaykum Salam dear Ustaz,
Raw meat from animals slaughtered according to Kosher requirements is halal. However, this does not mean that cuisine prepared from that meat will automatically be Halal because non-Muslim cooks or chefs might use wine or other types of alcohol to prepare its sauce, like veal blanket or beef Bourguignon. (It is not true that “it all evaporates” and even so, the food that was cooked in it would become najis and therefore haram, according to the view that alcohol produced for consumption is najis). Another example would be “Kosher chocolates” which means they are lard-free, but not necessarily alcohol-free. So the answer is a conditional yes: namely, that any food authentically marked Kosher is Halal provided it is first understood to be alcohol-free from start to finish.
WAllahu a`lam.
Gibril Haddad
