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Samak (Fish)
Imam Ahmad and Ibn Majah narrated that ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (radiallahu anhu) said that the Prophet, sallalahu aleyhi wa sallam, said:
((أحلت لنا ميتتان ودمان: السمك والجراد, والكبد والطحال))
“We were allowed two dead animals and two bloods: fish and locust, and liver and spleen.”
There are many kinds of fish, the best of which is the most delicious, the best scented, moderate in size, which has fine scales, the softest meat, which live in fresh water that flows on pebbles and which eat plants and not organic waste. The best areas for the fish to live are those with the freshest water and runs through rocks, then the areas that have sandy ground void of filth or wastes and which are mildly calm and exposed to the sun and wind.
Sea fish are also soft and delicious. The meat of sea fish that has soft skin is cold and wet, difficult to digest and produces excessive amounts of phlegm, but also produce acceptable temperament, increase semen production and fertility and suit hot conditions.
The best kind of salted fish is the most recently salted. Salted fish is hot dry, and the older they get the, hotter and drier they become. Silurid (similar to cat fish) is very viscous, and the Jews do not eat this type of fish. Yet, soft silurid meat softens the stomach, and when it is salted, kept and then eaten, it will clear the windpipe and make the voice finer. When it is ground and used as an external ointment, it will extract the wastes that accumulate inside the body, as it has the quality of extracting such substances.
Sitting in the salty water of silurid relives the effects of newly formed ulcers and extracts the harmful substances to the surface. Salty water of silurid also relives sciatic nerve ailment when one is injected with it.
The best part of fish meat is closer to the tail, and the soft and fatty meat produces fatness and flesh.
In the Sahihain it is also narrated that Jabir bin ‘Abdullah, radiallahu anhu said, “The prophet, sallahu aleyhi wa sallam sent us with three hundred riders under the leadership of Abu ‘Ubaidah bin al-Jarrah. We went by the seashore and were soon very hungry until we ate tree leaves. The sea then threw out a whale that is called ‘Anbar. We ate from it for a half a month and also used its fat in our food. Abu ‘Ubaidah then tool a rib of the fish and asked a man to ride his camel and then pass under the rib, which he easily did.”
Taken from: "Healing with the Medicine of the Prophet," by Ibn ul-Qayyim