Question: A neighbor asks why I eat dead fish while refusing to eat dead goats, cows, or chickens.
Ashraf, Royapettah, Chennai.
Answer: There is a difference between aquatic creatures and other living beings.
Aquatic creatures do not have circulating blood. Even if caught and slaughtered while alive, only a small amount of blood oozes out; it does not flow or drain away.
According to Islamic belief, the consumption of flowing blood is prohibited. One must not consume the blood that is released when slaughtering animals like goats or cows.
Blood flows out from animals like goats and cows only when they are slaughtered while alive; if slaughtered after death, the blood does not drain out. Consequently, consuming such meat results in the consumption of the blood retained within it.
This is the religious reason.
God may have prohibited this because blood can contain cells or germs that are unfit for human consumption. Blood begins to coagulate immediately after an animal dies, and germs that cannot survive in the blood spread to other parts of the body. No one can deny that the consequences of consuming blood would also arise when eating such meat.
This situation does not apply to fish.