unclean animals
Dietary law prohibitions
Animals forbidden as food or considered ritually impure under religious law, especially Jewish kosher rules and Islamic halal guidelines.
Leviticus and Deuteronomy classify animals by physical traits—land animals must have split hooves and chew cud, fish must have fins and scales.
Pigs, shellfish, and carrion birds are among the most commonly cited unclean animals.
The concept extends beyond diet to touch: contact with unclean animals could require ritual purification.
- pigDomesticated swine for meat
- swineDomestic porcine animals
- split hoofDivided ungulate foot
- chewing cudRechewing regurgitated food
- shellfishAquatic creatures with exoskeletons
shrimp · crab · lobster · sea creatures · scavenger · carrion · vulture · hyena · rat · vermin · abomination · forbidden · taboo · impure · defiled · tainted · filthy · bottom-feeder
- Biblical lawsTen Commandments, dietary laws, sabbath laws, kosher laws, jubilee year
- forbidden foodspork, bacon, ham, shellfish, shrimp cocktail
- Mosaic lawMoses, Mosaic law, Ten Commandments, tablets of stone, commandment
- Jewish livestockshechita, kosher slaughter, ritual slaughter, shochet, slaughterer
- animal ethicshumane treatment, ethical treatment, sentient beings, cruelty prevention, humane slaughter
- kosher animalskosher, split hooves, chewing cud, fins and scales, kosher fish
unclean animalsclean animals
Scripturally permitted for eating
kosher animals · sacrificial animals · sacred animals · cattle · sheep
unclean, animal, clean, cleaner, cleanest, cleanly, cleanliness, cleanse, cleanser