Arguments from outside the English conversation

The three essays below engage a single Persian-language article, اسلام و گیاهخواری ("Islam and Vegetarianism"), published by the Iranian plant-based advocacy site Sabzito. It is a substantial piece: it defines veganism, documents the practices of industrial animal agriculture, marshals Qur'anic and hadith material on mercy, revisits the purpose of sacrifice, draws on Shi'i reports and on the maqasid reasoning of al-'Izz ibn 'Abd al-Salam, and argues that plant-based living is not a departure from Islam but a deeper fidelity to it.

We have set out its arguments as fully and fairly as we can, translated its Persian and Arabic passages, and then done what any honest reader should: asked where each argument holds and where it does not. Some of the reports it leans on are weak or of disputed provenance; some of its readings are minority readings; some of its claims about contemporary jurists are unsourced. We say so in each case. None of that dissolves the argument — but a case for mercy is not helped by being made carelessly.

Sabzito is an advocacy site, not a fatwa body, and its outlook is Shi'i-inflected. The classical schools are clear that meat, dairy and eggs are permitted. The question these essays pursue sits above bare permissibility: given what animal agriculture has become, what does mercy require of us now?

A second Persian source sits alongside the Sabzito article on this site, and it is worth naming here rather than only where it appears: an anonymous open letter addressed to Shia Muslims about the livestock industry, which does not stop at "what does mercy require" but argues that meat, dairy and eggs are today haram. The honest thing to say about it is that it is a different kind of document from everything else in this section. The Sabzito article is an identifiable advocacy site's published piece; the open letter has no named author, no institution, and no marja' or hawza body behind it, and its own closing verdict calls itself a fatwa despite having no standing to issue one. We read it here for the same reason we read Sabzito: it is a serious attempt to apply real fiqh reasoning to a hard question, and it deserves to be engaged rather than dismissed — but its haram conclusion is a minority advocacy position that no major Sunni or Shia authority has adopted, and we say so wherever we discuss it. Read it in full at the open letter.