The Ruling Regarding Whey & Animal Rennet in Cheese

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is taken from Ruling Regarding Whey & Animal Rennet in Cheese. 

Rennet is an enzyme used in the food industry for the preparation of cheese by curdling milk.  It coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids, curds, and liquid, whey.  Rennet is extracted from the stomach of an animal whose meat is lawful after slaughtering in accordance with shari’ah.  Whey is a by-product which appears during the process of cheese making.  Regarding the whey and rennet of animals which were slaughtered according to the shari’ah, then it is unanimously considered permissible for consumption.  As for the whey and rennet of animals which were not slaughtered according to the shari’ah, scholars hold two opinions. 

Imam Abu Hanifah Nu’man ibn Tsabit (r.a.) and, according to a saying, Imam Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal (r.a.) and others say it is pure and may be consumed. 

Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Malik ibn Anas (r.a.); two students of Imam Abu Hanifah (r.a.), Imam Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn Ibrahim al-Answari (r.a.) and Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani (r.a.); Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i (r.a.), according to another recorded opinion, Imam Ahmad (r.a.) and others say it is impure. 

Imam Radhi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad as-Sarakhsi (r.a.) wrote, in his al-Mabsuth, “Cheese is permissible to consume even if it is made by Zoroastrians because it is narrated that a servant of Salman al-Farisi, when he was a governor of al-Mada’in, brought him a basket full of cheese along with some bread and a knife.  Salman al-Farisi would cut pieces of the cheese and hand it out to his companions and would explain to them how cheese is made.”  And that is the Hanafi position. 

Imam Muhammad ibn Ahmad ‘Alish (r.a.) wrote in his Manh al-Jalil Sharh Mukhtaswar Khalil, “Imam Malik disliked cheese because it was made by rennet of animals that are not slaughtered according to the shari’ah.” 

In Bahjah al-Mardhiyyah fi Sharh al-‘Alfiyyah by Imam as-Suyuthi (q.s.), a Shafi’i reference, it is written that, “Cheese is allowed as long as the rennet is obtained from a properly slaughtered, halal animal that is only feeding on milk, otherwise the contents of its stomach are najis.” 

Imam Manswur ibn Yunus al-Bahuti (r.a.) wrote in his Kashf al-Qina’ an Matn al-Iqna’, in Hanbali fiqh, it stated that, “The cheese of the Zoroastrians and other polytheists is allowed even if it is made from rennet of animals they slaughtered, which means that the cheese made by the People of Scripture is also allowed.”