Does adding natural vinegar to salted vegetables to prepare pickles, then smelling an alcoholic odor, make it forbidden intoxicants?
Placing vegetables with water, salt, and vinegar in a sealed container for a week might produce alcohol, but ruling it as Khamr (intoxicant) depends on its alcohol content. The legal reason for prohibiting Khamr is intoxication, and "every intoxicant is Khamr, and every intoxicant is Haram" and "that which intoxicates in large quantities, a small quantity of it is Haram." What you did cannot be ruled as pickling for Khamr unless it is proven that there is Khamr that intoxicates in large quantities. It appears that the liquid in the pickle has not turned into vinegar, and opening the container stopped the process of conversion to alcohol. The basic principle is permissibility, and unless it is proven that what was produced was Khamr that intoxicates in large quantities, there is no harm in consuming it. The presence of a small percentage of alcohol in foods or medicines, the large quantity of which does not intoxicate, permits their consumption and sale due to their transformation into something pure and permissible.
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- Source platform
- Ftawy
- Original fatwa ID
- 22679
- Imported
- Translation status
- Source text, unreviewed
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