Ruling on consuming foods containing lanolin

Praise
be to Allah

Lanolin is a
fatty yellow substance that is extracted from sheep’s
wool; it is also known as wool wax or wool grease. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanolin

There is nothing
wrong with consuming food that contains lanolin, if it is extracted from
sheep’s
wool.

If the sheep was
slaughtered in the prescribed manner, then the matter is clear, because it
is an animal that is regarded as pure and its flesh may be eaten, and it has
been slaughtered in the prescribed manner. So there is no doubt that its
hair (wool) and other parts are pure.

But if the wool
was taken from it when it was alive, or it was not slaughtered in the
correct, prescribed manner, then the more correct scholarly view is that the
hair of all animals is regarded as pure, even if the animal was not
slaughtered in the prescribed manner.

Shaykh al-Islam
Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

All hair,
feathers and wool are pure, whether they are from an animal that may be
eaten or the skin of an animal that may not be eaten, and whether they were
taken from an animal that was alive or dead. This is the most likely to be
correct of the scholarly opinions. End quote from
Majmoo‘
al-Fataawa
(21/38)

See also the
answer to question no. 176304

Even though
there is a view that wool and hair are impure in general terms, if they are
not taken from an animal that was slaughtered in the prescribed manner, this
(lanolin) is a substance that is extracted from the wool, so it is no longer
of the same nature as the impure hair from which it was taken; rather it has
turned into a different substance, and has become

–
through this process of istihaalah (transformation)

–
pure and halaal.

See the answers
to questions no. 248124 and
246660.

For more
information, please see the answer to question no.
102749

And Allah knows
best.