Pig fat in soap

Question

A Muslim gentleman is a soap trader. News has come that, because of the rise in oil prices, the government has begun giving soap-manufacturing companies a quota of fat imported from Western countries, which contains the fat of all kinds of animals (including swine); the companies mix this imported fat into soap. From a religious Muslim doctor it became known that the fat is converted into salts by a chemical reaction and [then] mixed into the soap.

Answer

The fat of carrion is impure, and the pig is impure in its very essence (najis al-'ayn). As long as a transformation of essence (qalb mahiyya) has not taken place, whereby its reality and properties change, use is not permissible. [But] without verification, merely on the basis of doubt, there is also no right to call the soap impure.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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