Does halal food become haram if touched by haram food? I work at a restaurant, and everything there is halal except for the chicken powder that is used to flavour the rice. If the restaurant workers touch the chicken rice, and touch normal rice with the same hands, does the normal rice become haram? Also note that the amount of chicken powder used is very small. May Allaah reward you.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If the food came in contact with an impure or unlawful substance, then the religious ruling on its purity differs according to its nature, solid or liquid. If the food is solid, only the part that came in contact with the impure or unlawful substance becomes impure, and the rest remains pure. However, if the food is liquid, all of it becomes impure.

Ibn Qudaamah said:

"If impurity fell in liquid food or drink other than water, it all becomes impure; and if it fell in solid food, like solidified butter, only the impurity with the part of the food surrounding it are removed and thrown away, and the rest is pure. This is based on the narration by Maymoonah in which it is related that the Prophet was asked about ghee (cooking butter) in which a mouse had fallen once. He said, 'Take out the mouse and what's around it, and eat the rest.' [Al-Bukhari] ... The solid food that does not become entirely infected with impurity is the firm food in which the impurity would not move from the place it fell in to another." [Al-Mughni]

The Maaliki scholar Al-Hattaab said, "If impurity fell into solid food and it can spread to it all, then the food becomes impure; but if the impurity cannot spread through it all, then only the area of which he thinks that the impurity has spread to is impure ..."

As for the fact that the amount of powder is very small, scholars held different opinions regarding the food mixed with a small amount of an impure substance extracted from an animal that was not islamically slaughtered if it is from the animals that can be lawful through slaughtering them Islamically (i.e. unlike dogs and pigs). We believe that the preponderant view in this regard is that it is pure, by the Will of Allaah, especially in countries where it is widespread and it is difficult to avoid such products. Ibn Katheer mentioned that the Companions used to eat the cheese brought from the Magians. It is known that cheese is made with beef rennet, and it is also known that their slaughtered animals are Islamically unlawful to eat because they are considered dead animals.

Al-Qurtubi said:

"Ibn Khuwayz Mindaad said, 'If it is said to us: 'Your saying that rennet is unlawful will lead to you being contrary to the scholarly consensus of opinion in this regard, since the Prophet and the Muslims after him used to eat the cheese brought from the lands of non-Muslims and it is known that the animals slaughtered by those non-Muslims who were Magians were considered dead animals and they did not make a distinction between the rennet taken from animals un-Islamically or Islamically slaughtered.', then our response to this statement will be as follows: 'The rennet ingredient in the milk from which the cheese is made is an insignificant amount, and the insignificant amount of impurity is pardoned if it is mixed with a large amount of liquid.'" [Tafseer Al-Qurtubi]

Allaah knows best.