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Is it permissible to grill or fry live seafood directly, such as fish or what is found in seashells?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The majority of scholars hold the view that it is reprehensible to grill a live fish with oil, due to the torture it entails. Ibn Qudamah explained Ahmad's disapproval of this by stating that fish, unlike locusts, have blood. As for Malik, he saw no harm in it, arguing that fish do not require ritual slaughter (tadhkiyah), so it is permissible to kill them by any method. Meanwhile, Ibn Rushd opined that the reprehensibility stems from the fact that the life remaining in the fish resembles the life of a slaughtered animal after its slaughter, and thus what is reprehensible in a slaughtered animal is also reprehensible in this case.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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