An eminent Muslim leader in the Indian city of Hyderabad has issued a fatwa against the city's prawns, sending its seafood sellers into shell-shock.
Mohammad Azeemuddin, head Mufti of the religious school of Jamia Nizamia, decreed earlier this week that the popular seafood dish was off the menu.
Prawns, he said, were in fact arthropods - insects - and that consuming them was prohibited, or haram.
The fatwa has caused a furor in the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana because prawn is one its most popular dishes - and many fatwas in the past have allowed it.
But other religious schools in the city have said that prawn is actually fine to eat, reports Gulf News India.
Confusingly, another religious institution in Hyderabad, Madrasa-e-Anwarul Huda, said that prawn was halal.
And the authorities of Jamia Nizamia eventually clarified that the fatwa is only strictly applicable to the followers of the Hanafi school of Muslim thought - just one of the four main schools of Sunni Islam.
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This article has been adapted from its original source.
