Shahm (animal fat: food, use of carrion fat, and the slaughter of the People of the Book)

In an animal shahm is the essence of fat; the Arabs call a camel's hump shahm and the whiteness of the belly shahm; the plural is shuhum. ¹ For most jurists shahm is the fat inside the body, such as kidney fat; some say it is whatever melts in fire from an animal. ¹

Dihn is oil or other fat for anointing, and is wider than shahm, since it may come from animals or plants. Dasm is grease, covering the rump, the belly, the back and the flank fat, and is wider than shahm. ^{1 2}

The fat of a properly slaughtered animal is lawful from any part. The fat of a forbidden animal such as the pig is forbidden, and the fat of carrion is forbidden, since slaughter does not affect it. ¹ Most jurists forbid using carrion fat for anything other than eating, on the hadith of Jabir that God and His messenger forbade the sale of wine, carrion, pork and idols; when asked about carrion fat used to coat ships, to oil hides and to light lamps, he said no, it is forbidden. ^{1 2} The Shafi'is allow the use of carrion fat for caulking ships and lighting lamps, and for anything other than eating or the human body; Ata' and Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari agree, and read the word "forbidden" in the hadith as referring to the sale, not to all use. ²

The jurists differ on the fat that was forbidden to the People of the Book in the verse on the Jews in al-An'am (146). The Hanafis, Shafi'is, the Hanbali school and a view of Malik hold it lawful, on the verse that the food of those given the Book is lawful to you, on the report of Abdullah ibn Mughaffal about a bag of fat at Khaybar, and because the Prophet ﷺ ate from a sheep sent by a Jewish woman without forbidding the fat of its belly. ^{2 3} Ibn al-Qasim, Ashhab, Abu al-Hasan al-Tamimi and a Hanbali qadi, a view also reported from Malik and attributed by al-Tamimi to al-Dahhak, Mujahid and Sawwar, hold it forbidden, since fat forbidden to them is not part of their food and so is not lawful to us. The qadi Abu Muhammad reports that Malik disliked it, placing it between forbidden and permitted. ³ See the entries on slaughter, the carrion and the lamp-oil use. ²