What Would Be the Correct Method of Slaughtering Ducks?


Hanafi Fiqh

Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam

Question: Assalam alaykum,

We have quite a number of drakes (male ducks) that we would like to kill for eating. However, we have never slaughtered a duck before.

What would be the correct method of slaughtering ducks?

Answer: Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

There are two types of slaughter: (1) voluntary, and (2) forced. The former refers to standard religious slaughter, whereas the latter broadly refers to the hunting of wild animals.

Keeping that in mind, the general basis is that we do not resort to hunting as long as it is possible to slaughter the animal normally. As such, the domesticated duck would be slaughtered like other domesticated animals, namely, at the throat, cutting three of the four vessels found at that point: the trachea, the oesophagus, and the two carotid arteries.

Please also see: A Reader on Halal Meat and: How to Hunt Animals in Islam?

And Allah Most High alone knows best.

wassalam,
Tabraze Azam

Checked & Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Photo: Alain Carpentier