Question

Please watch this video on synthetic meat grown in a factory with no salughtering or live animals:  https://youtu.be/KSS9Em4a_qs

Is it halal to consume chicken or beef grown this way?

Answer

al-Salām ‘alaykum wa raḥmat Allah wa brakātuh.

In the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

The general method employed by Upside Foods and many other cultured meat companies is that stem-cells are derived from live animals (ex. cows) to begin the process of creating the cultured meat. The cells undergo a process called cell-culturing in which they are essentially put into an artificial environment which provides essential nutrients such as amino acids and carbohydrates to help the muscle cells multiply and grow. Once enough muscle fibers have grown, the result is a meat that resembles ground beef. 

Cultured meat produced in this way is not halal. The meat of domesticated halal animals (cows, chickens, etc.) is only halal if the animal has been slaughtered Islamically. The Messenger of Allah said, “Whatever is severed from an animal while it is alive is considered maytah (carrion).”[1] Meaning, the severed portion cannot be consumed. The extracted stem-cell is maytah and, hence, impermissible to consume.[2]

And Allah knows best.

Mufti Hisham Dawood

Darul Ifta, Darul Qasim 

Shaykh Amin Kholwadia

Darul Ifta, Darul Qasim