CATEGORY > Fiqh

Play dough

QUESTION

The commercially bought play dough contains cream of tartar. This is “Cream of tartar — also known as potassium bitartrate or potassium acid tartrate — is the potassium acid salt of L-tartaric acid, which is naturally present in wine (1).Formed as a byproduct of winemaking, cream of tartar crystallizes and forms deposits at the bottom of wine casks during the fermentation process”.I do not know weather I can allow my children to play with play dough . Is it permissible?

ANSWER

In the scenarion mentioned the play dough may contain cream of tartar which has been derived from wine. As cream of tartar can also be synthetically produced one cannot categorically consider it an impermissble ingredient until the source of this ingredient is definitively identified as being from wine, for example via the product labelling, website etc. One may also avoid the said product out of precaution. And Allah knows best.

Answered by FCB Fatwa Department