The holiday season is here, and so the mind turns to the question, is nutmeg halal?
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aziz 10:58 am on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
despite my cleverest tag ever, this actually is a serious question. Heres a couple of threads elsewhere in the Fatwahsphere
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/39408/nutmeg
http://www.mahjoob.com/en/forums/showthread.php?t=235464
http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=364705
null 11:02 am on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
zomg. I never even considered the possibility.
aziz 11:34 am on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
it only came up because someone (the usualy type of Helpful Someone) saw me ordering a venti gbread latte and said “you know the topping is pure nutmeg now?” which I didnt. easiy fixed in that i order my lattes without topping, i just want the caffeine.
it is annoying because pretty much every (non-alcoholic) egg nog you can buy has some in it.
null 12:02 pm on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
It never even crossed my mind that nutmeg could possibly be haraam. Nutmeg is the secret ingredient to any good bechamel sauce!
This is just like the great Cherry-Ripe-is-not-halal heartbreak of 1994.
Conrad Barwa 6:07 pm on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
ordering a venti gbread latte
FFS, Aziz, could you do anything more to fill out the stereotype of the latte-sipping liberal
aziz 9:10 pm on November 15, 2009 Permalink
i probably could, and would, if i just knew how
too cold up here in Wisconsin for birkenstocks. this time of year, anyway
Conrad Barwa 11:27 pm on November 15, 2009 Permalink
gingerbread latte as well, sheesh, what are you Aziz – a 16 year old cheerleader?
Shams al-Nahar 9:09 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
Obviously Conrad has never seen your anime blog, my habbibi.
Aziz is a _haibane._
Shams al-Nahar 9:11 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
try that agin…
Aziz is a haibane.
abunoor 9:44 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink |
1. The use of nutmeg with the intention of producing an intoxicating effect is unquestionably prohibited. This will include any misuse of nutmeg for any purpose – including the direct consumption of a sufficient quantity of pure nutmeg.
2. The purchase, sale and consumption of food products on the market containing small quantities of nutmeg is lawful, since such food products themselves have no potential to intoxicate even if large quantities are consumed.
3. The purchase, sale, and use of pure nutmeg among Muslims as a seasoning for foods and beverages is a question that warrants further investigation. It remains a point of contention among scholars. It depends on whether nutmeg is to be regarded properly as an intoxicant from an Islamic legal standpoint. It could be argued that use of nutmeg as an intoxicant is so impractical because of its severe side effects, that its sale and use by Muslims for cooking could be regarded as lawful.
And Allah knows best.
null 11:03 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
This was the point that confused me:
1. Nutmeg in large quantities is an intoxicant.
2. Used in small quantities for cooking, seasoning etc is probably fine, as it’s impossible to be intoxicated from such small amounts.
Though I’m (almost 100%) sure that chocolates that contain even small amounts of rum or other alcohol would be considered haraam, based on the principle “Of that which intoxicates in a large amount, even a small amount is haraam”.
Confused.
willow 11:32 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
In this case, a ’small’ amount of alcohol is misleading. The liqueurs used in chocolates tend to be quite concentrated (Up to 2 or 3x the ammt of alcohol in wine), so you could conceivably get tipsy if you ate enough of them. On the other hand, you would die of kidney failure before you got high off of nutmeg if you imbibed it by drinking lattes or eating cookies.
So it’s not really a 1:1 comparison.
null 11:37 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
Thanks Willow.
aziz 11:58 am on November 16, 2009 Permalink
Willow’s answer is the one that gets me right to the door, and its not the lattes driving my motive here (I can just order the lattes without nutmeg) but actually egg nog, where the nutmeg is part of the ingredient. I LOVE the egg nog made by Dean’s Dairy (pretty common up here in Wisconsin) and it only comes out this time of year. But nutmeg is listed as an ingredient and I doubt its enough to really even make a impact in taste.
and yet – null, your point that “that which intoxicates in a large amount, even a small amount is haram” is not really answered by the pro-nutmeg point. Willow’s right that to get high off nutmeg in lattes or eggnog, youd be dead of kidney failure. But is that relevant to the principle at hand?
“of that which intoxicates in a large amount” is a stricter standard than “that which intoxicates in amounts so large as to require kidney failure”. Actually nutmeg in principle intoxicates in a not that small amount – inmates in prisons have been using a couple of spoonfuls in wter as a crude stimulant. So its not that the nutmeg itself itoxicates in a negligible amount, its that a negligible amount of it is used in certain foods. So are the foods themselves haram?
“even a small amount is haram” says the saying. Argh.
for now im holding off on the egg nog.
null 12:08 pm on November 16, 2009 Permalink
You’re right Aziz, and I thought about that right after pressing the post button.
For instance, I remember someone saying that you would die of over eating before getting tipsy on Cherry Ripe, but I don’t think that makes it less haraam since it was widely known that it does contain alcohol.
This of course goes beyond intoxicants. Just a leetle bit of gelatin in a product doesn’t make it more/less haraam than a ham sandwich.
If scholars are generally giving the go ahead to nutmeg as seasoning, I’m not arguing. I’m just confused by what seems to me a contradiction in the methodology that wouldn’t be extended to alcohol or other haraam ingredients. I know I must be missing something here, but what?
null 11:01 am on November 15, 2009 Permalink |
What, how?! Explain yourself, Aziz.