Whenever the holy month of Ramazan arrives, ostrich meat is one of the items that people often talk about because of its popularity in recent times. The meat is served by a popular charity organisation in Karachi. But in Aaj News transmission there was a caller who asked whether it was halal or haram.

The caller was Syed Aurhan Ali from Karachi. He had called in the sehri transmission, Baran-e-Rehman. Before asking his query, Aurhan said that he had been confused for the past week after eating ostrich meat in sehri at a place in Karachi.

He admitted that it was tasty, however, a couple of videos on social media from religious scholars puzzled him. According to Aurhan, the late scholar Zameer Akhtar Naqvi in one of his videos said the meat of a large flightless bird was forbidden in Islam. But he also saw a video of Mufti Tariq Masood who had an ostrich egg in sehri.

Dr Amir Abdullah Muhammadi, one of the two religious scholars on the show, replied that it was called “Shuttar” in Urdu due to its tall height like a camel and “Murgh” because the bird belonged to the family of chicken.

While speaking about Naqvi’s video, he said that the late scholar had spoken about a riwayat (tale). But the research conducted by Shia scholars did not prove it, he added.

He went on to add that the ostrich was considered among halal animals in Ahl-e-Sunnat, Ahl-e-Hadith, Shawaf-e-Hanabil, and Mawakil as it has no qualities of a haram animal.

Molana Hussain Masudi, another scholar, advised people to come out of the world of clips and not make it a base for faith. He called for conducting research and meeting people to raise the query.

Masudi further advised people to read the complete sentence rather than cherry-picking. He added that the Quran, Hadith, and history should be read to understand a problem properly.