The Food Laws Of The Quran

The basic categories of forbidden foods listed most often in the Quran are carrion, blood, pig's meat, and any otherwise permissible creature the names of other gods are pronounced over, but there is an exception given for people who are desperate with hunger (see Surah 2:173, 6:145, and 16:115 for all of this).  Surah 5:3 again mentions carrion, blood, pig's meat, and any animals a god besides Allah has been invoked over as immoral to eat, adding that a strangled animal, one afflicted by a great blow or fall, killed by a beast of prey, or anything sacrificed to idols are to be avoided.  In cases of a violent blow or fall or goring by a predatory creature, the animal can still be eaten, if alive when found, as long as it is slaughtered correctly according to the same verse.  Eating seafood is allowed in general and on pilgrimages in particular (Surah 5:96).

Now, the Quran prohibits consumption of pig in isolation from any broader category.  While it is supposedly revelation that affirms the Torah (Surah 2:53, 3:3, 5:45-46, 48, 6:154, 17:2, 61:6), and Surah 6:146 does acknowledge that God prohibited any land creatures with undivided (unsplit) hooves to the Jews, Leviticus 11:4-8 and Deuteronomy 14:3-8 preclude consuming pig because a land animal must have both split hooves and chew its cud to be permissible as food, the pig only having split hooves.  In Quranic ethics, other such animals that only meet one of these requirements are allowed to be eaten, a glaring contradiction between the Islamic text and the Torah it says is from God.  Moreover, Leviticus 11:9-12 and Deuteronomy 14:9-10 allow only animals of the water that have both fins and scales; Surah 5:196, as well as the other aforementioned verses on sinful food, clearly permit the likes of lobster, crab, shark, and shrimp, all forbidden in the Torah.

Yet again, the Quran contradicts the Torah it says is from Allah on moral matters, allowing many foods that are condemned by God in Mosaic Law.  Not even the New Testament actually denies the ongoing nature (Malachi 3:6) of the dietary laws in the Torah: passages like Matthew 15:1-20 and Acts 11:1-18 are really about things other than food, like washing one's hands before meals, and the New Testament affirms the perfect righteousness and immutability of core obligations mentioned in the Old Testament over and over (Matthew 5:17-19, Romans 7:7, Hebrews 2:2, James 1:17, and so on).  If the Torah is true, as both the New Testament and Quran say, then the Quran is by necessity contrary to reality.  If the Torah is false, the Quran is still in error since it claims otherwise.  Very rarely is the Quran consistent with what is morally permissible or evil as described in Mosaic Law.

That both condemn eating pigs does not alter the very different reasons why.  The Quran even misrepresents the Pentateuch's restriction on eating fat: Surah 6:146 says that Allah forbade the Jews to eat the fat of cattle and sheep except what is on their backs and intestines and what adheres to their bones.  In actuality, while Leviticus says to not eat blood as the Quran does (Leviticus 17:10-14 and 19:26 are just some relevant verses), Leviticus 3:17 and 7:22-24 condemn eating all fat, though some verses in chapter 7 specifically mention sacrificial animals like cattle, sheep, and goats.  Fat, like blood, regardless of the creature it comes from, is not to be consumed.  The Quran does not even get what Mosaic Law says right!  In acknowledging the Torah as a prerequisite to later Islamic revelation to Muhammad, the Quran puts its doctrines in a state of utter contradiction.  Not all of them could possibly be true at once.