Huzoor (rh): I’ll explain that. If you know positively that lard is used, then you should resist from eating that food prepared with lard. But if you do not know, then you don’t have to worry much, over much about this, because this was exactly what was taught and practiced by Hazrat Aqdas Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam himself. They used to come meet from various places, from the nomads, and people sometimes in Mecca doubted, the followers of the Holy Prophet (sa) [doubted], as to the meat being halal or haram, being rightly slaughtered in the Islamic way or not. And Hazrat Aisha Siddiqa r.a. tells us thatHuzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wa sallam rejected these doubts and suspicions and said, if you know something to be haram, resist from eating it. But don’t imagine, you don’t permit your fancy to take flight in every direction and doubt everything. Unless you know something to be wrong, what you can do is say Bismillah and you can eat that thing. So that is the conduct of ourHuzoor sallallahu alaihi wa sallam himself. So if you know that lard is used, resist from it. If you don’t know and you can have something positively without lard, prefer that. But otherwise if you eat something of which you don’t know positively that some haram thing has been used, it is not wrong. Only say Bismillah and that’s quite enough.
