Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
There is nothing wrong with eating fish at a Chinese restaurant where Chinese people work.
Responding to the question, Dr. Salah Sultan, former President of the American Center for Islamic Research in Columbus, Ohio, and a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, states:
We are allowed to consume food prepared by any person, as long as the food itself is clean, healthy, and only includes lawful ingredients.
As for seafood, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked about it and he is reported to have said, “Its water is pure and its dead are halal“ (Ahmad).
It is permissible to eat fish as long as it is suitable for human consumption and healthy as well. Fish that is prepared by a non-Muslim worker in a restaurant is permissible to eat because of the generality of the hadith narrated by Ibn `Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) who quoted the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as saying, “Two dead meats and two bloods are permitted to us to eat: The whale and the locust; the liver and the spleen” (Ahmad).
Therefore, eat fish wherever you want; the religion of the people who work in the restaurant does not matter.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Source: Taken, with some modifications, from www.amjaonline.com.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.