Answered by Shaykh Jamir Meah
Question: Assalamu alaykum
Is vinegar permissible in the Shafi’i school?
Answer: Wa’alaykum assalam. Jazakum Allah khayr for your questions.
Vinegar is permissible to consume in the Shafi’i school with condition. The condition is that no external substance has been added during the fermentation process. We will discuss the details of this condition below.
Types of Vinegar
Vinegars generally come from permissible sources. There are two usual fermentation processes when producing vinegar: juice to alcohol and alcohol to vinegar. Examples of common vinegars are:
Rice vinegar which comes from rice
Grain vinegar which comes from grains
Spirit vinegar which comes from sugar cane or chemically produced acetic acid
White wine vinegar which comes from white grapes
Red wine vinegar which comes from red grapes
Other fruit vinegar which comes from various fruits such as dates, pomegranates etc.
Condition
In our school, if no external substance has been added to the juice or wine during the fermentation process, the vinegar is considered pure and permissible to consume.
If an external substance has been added, irrespective of whether the external substance is an enzyme or any other external substance, and whether purposefully thrown in or incidentally, then there is some detail:
If the substance is impure (najasa), then the wine does not become pure through the conversion process, even if the substance is taken out before or after the wine phase.
If the substance is pure then, if it is taken out before the vinegar phase and nothing has separated from the substance, the process remains valid and the vinegar permissible.
However, if the substance was not taken out in the juice or wine phase (i.e. before the vinegar phase), or it was taken out before the vinegar phase but something has separated from the substance, the process is rendered invalid and the vinegar would not be permissible to consume.
Exceptions to the condition
Imam al Ramli, in agreement with other scholars, states that if the external substance is of a type that also turns to vinegar, such as a different fruit juice, or juice from sugar, honey, dates, or grains, then the addition of these substances do not affect the process and the vinegar is permissible. This is on the condition that these also turn into vinegar with the original substance during the process.
Imam Ibn Hajr and others excused bits of stalk and any grapes that may unavoidably fall into the container during the juice phase, as well as the membrane of dates and other unpreventable parts of the original substance that fall in. Imam Zakariyah al Ansari and Imam Ramli did not excuse these.
[Tuhfa al Muhtaj, Nihayatul Muhtaj, Bughyatul Mustarshidin, Bushra Karim, Nail al Raja’]
Fiqh in practice
Vinegar is a very widely used product. It is found in many commercial food items, and many cuisines, particularly some Middle Eastern cooking, uses vinegar abundantly. Furthermore, vinegar has many well established health benefits.
Many Shafi’is find the ruling on vinegar difficult to live by and it is often very difficult to ascertain the production process. While there is no doubt that adhering to one’s school of law as much as possible is praiseworthy, it is sometimes very difficult for people to follow their schools’ position in every ruling.
Due to the widespread use of vinegar, difficulty in ascertaining the details of the production process, as well as considering the numerous benefits vinegar has to offer, there is no harm in adopting a less stringent position from another school, such as the Hanafi school, which does not place the same conditions on the fermentation process as the Shafi’i school.
In this, the mercy that comes with having valid scholarly difference between the four schools of law becomes apparent.
And Allah knows best.
Warmest salams,
[Shaykh] Jamir Meah
Shaykh Jamir Meah grew up in Hampstead, London. In 2007, he traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he spent nine years studying the Islamic sciences on a one-to-one basis under the foremost scholars of the Ribaat, Tarim, with a main specialization and focus on Shafi’i fiqh. In early 2016, he moved to Amman, Jordan, where he continues advanced studies in a range of Islamic sciences, as well as teaching. Jamir is a qualified homeopath.