xunxar Follow the one thing I’ll never be able to forgive Daniel Molloy for is not writing an entire chapter that’s just following Armand make himself dinner from start to finish
like. okay. he says drinking blood is makrooh for vampires. by which I think he’s trying to express how “if the only food you have access to is haram and you’re going to starve, it's not a sin to eat it” applies to them, since they'll be in that situation in perpetuity? like, it’s a sin to indulge in blood, so you should fast for as long as you can tolerate it, and drink only when continued abstinence would be harmful (like how not fasting during Ramadan is forgiven for medical reasons). Louis says Armand only eats rarely, so this scans. sure, Louis attributes that habit to age, not religious reasons, but only needing to eat rarely and only actually eating rarely are two different things. Armand probably goes a lot longer in between meals than Louis would be able to if he was trying, but also a lot longer than your average 500yo.
and SPEAKING of Louis. their radically different diets are really interesting to me. in theory Armand could have gone “““vegan””” with Louis in 2000, but in practice, Louis seems to actively avoid livestock? apart from the sheep that Claudia brings him in chapter 8, everything we see him eat are either humans or fanged predators (haram). it’s obviously not an ease of access thing in Dubai, I mean...he literally has a human farm. we also don't see Armand eat with Louis even when he is killing, and he seems to have an issue with the drug use. straight edge halal queen I mean what. anyway, there’s a debate we could probably have over the relative ethics of killing livestock vs killing humans who apparently explicitly consented to the most dangerous game (or are suicidal/presumed consenting? “half in love with an easeful death”) but I don’t really care about that. what I care about is how he picks them.
Armand apparently has “detailed guidelines” for selection and slaughter. let’s start with slaughter because it’s easy: I have to assume he’s following dhabihah as closely as he can (you can’t say basmala over anything makrooh or haram, so he’d be skipping this step? probably? if I’m right about selection practices the killings are halal per se so you could say basmala while slitting the throat but only if it’s a separate act from drinking, and since the blood-drinking can’t be halal at all you may or may not bother? IDK, I could see an argument either way). everything we see/hear about Armand’s feeding practices at least in the last 50 years backs this up, with all that emphasis on painless death/no suffering. I also kind of want to know if he cuts the windpipe with his fangs or with his claws? and his personal definition of torture.
but anyway. that’s slaughter. now let’s talk selection, because I think Armand is following Sharia.
NO BUT HEAR ME OUT. arms trafficker Malik is 100% guilty of moharabeh/hirabah/waging war against God 
and it depends on Armand’s juristic school of choice but if he’s a Maliki (popular both in Dubai and in medieval Europe) then Daniel qualifies for moharabeh because of the paper bag thing, and if he’s a Hanafi (popular in the Delhi sultanate) while that’s zina and so wouldn’t be death penalty for unmarried xian Daniel, being a living human who knows about vampires probably counts as moharabeh on its own anyway because of the Great Laws? and the 70s is pretty early for Sharia revival anyway, so if he ever lapsed (do NOT get me started on the children of darkness era or we will be here all year) Daniel might not be a good data point anyway.
look, we only have two confirmed victims and Daniel has special circumstances so it’s very hard to make sweeping claims but vampire fiqh would be both completely in character and also hilarious. a mind reader can meet the burden of proof for hadd offenses super easily, and in this way Armand could almost been seen as counteracting the unavoidable sin of blood-drinking with the good deed of carrying out a hadd punishment, especially one where the burden of proof wouldn’t be able to be met without telepathy! 37 notes 