Treeshrews not halaal to eat

23-1-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaikum. Is treeshrew halal? We have many in our surroundings and many people eat them.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger. 

According to the information we gathered about the treeshrew, we have come to know that it belongs to the Soricidae family, which is similar to mice and rats. Scholars underlined that it is a mouse-like mammal. Ibn Al-Atheer wrote, “A shrew is a mouse-like creature that cannot hear...” [An-Nihaayah]

Taaj Al-‘Aroos reads, “Zabaab (shrew) is like a large deaf mouse...”

Abu Mansoor Al-Harawi wrote, “Ibn Al-A‘rabi said that 'Zabaabah' is another name for the mouse. I said: It is deaf, and the plural is Zabaab and Zabaabaat. Ibn Hillizah said (in a poetic line), ‘They are like wandering Zabaab whose ears cannot hear thunder (because they are deaf).’ Al-Layth highlighted that Zabaab are a kind of rats...” [Tahtheeb Al-Lughah]

The Global Arabic Encyclopedia reads, “Shrews are often confused with rats given their small size... Shrews fiercely attack rats that are bigger in size than them, and some shrews have a venomous bite...”

According to the images of the shrew that we saw online, it seems to be a kind of mouse or rat, which is bigger than a mouse. Hence, it is impermissible to eat it (it is not halaal).

Allah knows best.