Introduction

Yearly, 150 billion animals are slaughtered for their meat, and the global meat demand for the projected nine billion population is expected to grow up to 60% by 2050, leading experts to question the sustainability of the meat supply and its environmental impacts.[1]  In response, researchers have found a way to grow meat within a lab environment that does not require the slaughtering of any animals and solves the environmental challenges of conventional meat production.  A research in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found that such lab-grown meat, also referred to as clean meat or cultured meat, requires up to 45% lower energy, 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions, 96% lower water use, and 99% lower land use than the current methods of commercial meat production.[2]

Scientists successfully grew sufficient meat in labs in 2013 to product a burger, although it cost nearly $330,000, but the advancement in the technology has since brought the price down to nearly $11, and it is expected to be available for consumer consumption at competitive prices within the next two years.[3]  As the government debates on whether such lab-grown meat may be labeled as “meat,” Muslims need to understand whether such meat derived from animals that were not slaughtered, neither Islamically nor otherwise, is halal.

Growing Meat in a Lab

In order to grow meat in the lab, scientists extract stem cells from a living animal and place them in an environment that allows it to grow and replicate up to a trillion muscle cells.  The basic process is as follows:

1. Extract stem cells from a living animal;
2. Place the cells in a nutrient-rich medium that feeds the cells and allows them to grow and replicate up to a trillion muscle cells;
3. Exercise the cells with electric currents to increase mass; and
4. Harvest the meat and perform other further processing, as needed[4]

Given that the first lab-grown burger contained 20,000 cow muscle cells, it is evident that a single stem cell extraction from an animal has the potential to create a lot of meat.[5]  Moreover, it is possible to consume meat none of which was ever part of a cow and was entirely lab-grown.

Although the initial lab meat involved cells from cows, researchers have begun growing meat from other animals, as well, such as chickens and turkeys.  For example, after extracting cells from a chicken, scientists feed the cells with water and nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, proteins, and sugars, such that the harvested cells can grow sufficiently to form a chicken tender within four to six weeks, the same period a chick reaches adulthood within the poultry industry.[6]

Scientifically, the extracted cells from the animal are alive post-extraction, which begets the question of whether the Sharia would classify it as alive, as well, or would it rule it as dead meat.  This impacts not only the permissibility of the lab-grown meat’s consumption, but also the status of its purity.

Extraction from Living Body Parts

The Muslim jurists explicitly discussed the concept of an extraction from a living animal based on the famous hadith and juridical principle, “Whatever is cut from an animal while it is alive, then [the separated portion] is dead.”[7]  Thus, if a part of an animal separates from it in such a manner that the animal continues to live post-separation, then the separated portion constitutes maytah (carrion).[8]

However, this applies in those parts of the animal that are considered to have life in them in the first place, as death cannot apply where there was no life to begin with.  The jurists explicitly mentioned that certain parts of an animal, such as wool, may be extracted while it is alive, and these parts would not be considered dead, as there was never any life in them.  Life only applies within that which is normally consumed, i.e. meat and what falls within its ruling, such as the skin.[9]  Hence, any other part of the animal, if extracted from it while alive, does not fall under the ruling of maytah.

Ruling on Lab-Grown Meat

The ruling on lab-grown meat depends on the source of the cells, the most popular and oldest being muscle stem cells.  Based on the principle mentioned in the above section, muscle stem cells are from amongst the parts of an animal that have life within it and, consequently, will be considered impure and impermissible if extracted from an animal without slaughtering it according to Islamic guidelines.  The extracted cells, even though alive according to science, are considered dead according to the Sharia, and the same applies to the cells that replicate from it.  Therefore, regardless of whether the lab-grown meat contains the initial extracted cells or only the replicated ones, the Sharia regards it as maytah, impure, and impermissible (ḥarām) to consume because the Islamic slaughtering process to purify this meat never took place.

However, once an animal is slaughtered according to Islamic guidelines, its cells are not considered alive and, as such, do not carry the possibility of being dead.  Therefore, if cells are extracted from an Islamically slaughtered animal, then any meat grown in the lab through such cells is permissible, even if the consumed meat does not contain any portion of the original cells.  Hence, if a company wants to produce halal lab-grown meat using muscle stem cells, it may do so by extracting the stem cells from an Islamically slaughtered animal, assuming it does not use any other ingredients in the process that would render it impermissible, such as the use of bovine fetal serum.

Furthermore, a newer approach involves extracting induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from the tip of a dropped chicken feather.[10]  Chicken feathers, as per the principle explained in the previous section, do not carry the possibility of life, and any cells extracted therefrom and the meat subsequently grown from it do not fall into the category of maytah.[11] Hence, the meat grown from such cells, assuming it contains no other impermissible ingredients, is halal.

Conclusion

Although the efforts to address the increasing meat demand and its environmental impacts are praiseworthy, it is necessary that Muslims only avail of avenues that align with Sharia laws.  The current procedure of extracting muscle stem cells from a live animal within the lab-grown meat industry does not conform to the Sharia laws that would render meat pure and permissible.  Rather, such lab-grown meat is both impure and impermissible.  However, companies have large commercial opportunities within the Muslim world through a small change in extracting initial muscle stem cells from an Islamically slaughtered animal instead of a live one.  Additionally, the use of induced pluripotent stem cells, such as from chicken feather, meets the Islamic guidelines for permissibility.

The lab-grown meat industry is in its infancy and there exists a high probability that procedures will continue to evolve as the industry matures.  Hence, this resolution must be viewed within the scope of the procedures defined herein, and a fatwa on any specific brand of lab-grown meat should be requested from a reputable Darul Iftaa, which will analyze the company’s procedures under the light of the principles mentioned above and issue the appropriate ruling.

Finally, it behooves the Muslim community to look not only at the permissibility of their food, but to also consider health and moderation.  While the meat industry investigates ways to increase meat production, the Muslim community should raise awareness of eating a more balanced and healthy diet, one that is not consistently dependent on meat.

And Allah knows best.

Mufti Abrar Mirza
Mufti Abdullah Nana
Mufti Sohail Bengali

6^th Rabīʿ al-Thānī, 1440 – December 14, 2018

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