A Juridical Study of Prohibition of Eating Non-Scaly Seafood

There are a lot of restrictions in well-known juridical views of Imamiyyah school of law with regards to eating seafood and aquatic animals. The common and unanimous view of Shia scholars is that sea creatures are forbidden to eat except for shrimps and fish that have scales. The main reason that justifies this position originates in the narrations that deal mainly with the permissibility or impermissibility of fish that have or do not have scales. But these narrations have poor chain of transmission and therefore cannot be considered as authentic. This article seeks to study the permissibility or impermissibility of eating seafood trying to conclude that having scales cannot be a definite permissibility criterion. So what is the legal or juridical criterion for permissibility of sea creatures especially fish? Who determines the criterion for what is halal or haram sea creature? Is it the common custom or particular custom that determines the manifestation? In their writings, jurists have not discussed the rules concerning shrubs and insects found in water. When it comes ot sea creatures, they have confined their discussions to fish stating that only fish that have scales are halal to eat which, by itself, gives rise to serious questions.