Sacrificing and eating wild sheep

18-11-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaykum. Is it allowed to eat and sacrifice a wild sheep?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

We do not understand what you mean exactly by ‘wild sheep’. If you mean beasts, they are not acceptable as animal sacrifices, according to most scholars.

Imam As-Sarakhsi said:

“Wild cows, wild donkeys, and antelopes are not acceptable as animal sacrifices in voluntary or obligatory animal sacrifices, because the sacrifice is defined by the Shariah as a good act intended for drawing closer to Allah. The Shariah stipulated that the sacrifice be from Anʻaam, which are (domesticated) camels, cattle, sheep and goats. Moreover, slaughtering wild animals is not considered an act of drawing closer to Allah to begin with ... If the animal to be sacrificed was born to a wild male animal and a domesticated female one, it is acceptable as a sacrifice. If the female animal is wild, the child is not acceptable as a valid sacrifice because the child is part of the mother.” [Al-Mabsoot]

As for the meat of wild animals, it is allowed. The Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Fiqh reads, “It is allowed to consume the flesh of any beast that does not have a fang with which it preys and does not fall into the category of insects, such as the antelope, wild cow, wild donkey, and wild camel. The flesh of such animals is lawful for human consumption according to the consensus of Muslim scholars.”

Allah knows best.