I once heard that there is no cross contamination with Seafood and crustaceans because they do not have actual blood in them (hence not impure).
Could the respected Ulama fact check this?
Bismillahi Ta’ala
Walaikum Assalam Warahmatullah
When it comes to seafood, or contamination thereof, there are two things to keep in mind.
a. According to Hanafiya, all seafood aside from fish is not permissible. Which means the ruling of hurmah is applied to the non fish aquatic animals.
b. The taharah (purity) or Najasah (impurity) of such aquatic animals is a different matter altogether.
From “b” simply because a aquatic animal may be categorized as tahir (pure) in itself, it does not mean that their consumption becomes permissible.
One mas’alah this helps us in is a fish market that places fish next to crab or other non-fish, this touching of the fish vs non-fish, does not render the fish najis, nor does it make the fish impermissible to consume. The non-fish (crab, shellfish etc) remains impermissible however.
Another example of this would be for a aquatic non fish animal falling into a pool of water and dying. This will not render the water najis. That animal will still be impermissible.
Now coming to our situation where there is a chance of “cross contamination” in food ingredients. Note that here the issue is not a permissible food coming into contact with impermissible seafood, rather the issue here is possibility of presence of impermissible seafood within the permissible food.
Hence it will not be completely correct to that there is no cross contamination with seafood, rather a better statement would be that contact of impermissible seafood does not result in impurity.
Our resolutions for AskHalal keep this in mind and where ever caution demands that a product be treated as impermissible based on this, we mark it as such.
Wallahu A’lam
And Allah Ta’āla Knows Best
Mufti Faisal al-Mahmudi