Is Cheddar Cheese Halal or Haram?

Is cheddar cheese halal or haram? If cheese ingredients are halal, cheddar cheese is halal. Many companies now use plant-based or microbial rennet, making cheddar cheese halal. Cheddar cheese’s ingredients determine its halal status. Cheddar cheese uses plant and animal ingredients. So, if the ingredients are from halal animals that were slaughtered Islamically, the cheese is halal. Otherwise, it is haram.

Can Muslims Eat Cheddar Cheese?

Yes, cow’s milk makes cheddar cheese halal. But some cheddar cheese products may have ingredients that aren’t halal, like rennet, which is an enzyme used to make milk clump together. Muslims may not eat rennet made from a calf’s stomach lining. According to scholarly consensus, we cannot eat cheese made from the milk of a prohibited animal. It can be eaten if it is made from the milk of an animal we can eat and contains rennet from an animal slaughtered according to shari’ah with no najaasah (impurity).

Why is Cheddar Cheese Considered Haram?

If it was made with dead-meat rennet, it is haraam. It should not be eaten if it was made with najis (impure) pig rennet.

In this case, it’s best to be careful and fear Allah. In these situations, it might be better to avoid doubtful things than to use them, as al-Nu’maan ibn Basheer (may Allah be pleased with him) said in a hadith:

Hadith in that Case

“I heard Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as having said this (and Nu’man) pointed towards his ears with his fingers): What is lawful is evident and what is unlawful is evident, and in between them are the things doubtful which many people do not know. So he who guards against doubtful things keeps his religion and honour blameless, and he who indulges in doubtful things indulges in fact in unlawful things, just as a shepherd who pastures his animals round a preserve will soon pasture them in it. Beware, every king has a preserve, and the things God his declared unlawful are His preserves. Beware, in the body there is a piece of flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound and if it is corrupt the whole body is corrupt, and hearken it is the heart. “

Narrated by Muslim, 1599

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