Quote:
Originally Posted by dlish
in laymans terms, halal literally means 'permissable' in arabic. in order for a muslim to eat halal meat, there are certain conditions that must be met.
the first and foremost is that the name of God be mentioned prior to the slaughter.
secondly, the death must be swift, and you must reduce the suffering as much as possible.
thirdly the animal's throat must be cut in a certain spot to drain all the blood.
fourthly - all the blood must be drained from the animal
fifth - the animal cannot be swine. even if swine was killed in the correct manner, it can never be halal, unless in necessities. ie. you're out in the bush and theres nothing else to eat sort of situation.
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That's quite interesting! I knew that halal slaughter required something akin to what we Jews would call making a blessing beforehand (i.e., the name of God is mentioned in reference to being the Creator, etc.), and I knew that Muslims were also forbidden pork, but I did not know that Islam also forbids the eating of blood, and that the slaughter is supposed to be quick and as painless as possible. Those things are also true of kosher slaughter (sh'khitah), although it sounds like the process of making meat kosher is a bit more elaborate, as we must not only drain the animal of blood in the usual way, but also salt the meat using rock salt, forcing it to drain on a slanted board, then rinsing off the salt with water, and repeating the whole process three times.
Question: can anyone who has been told those rules slaughter an animal and have the resulting meat be halal? I ask because with us Jews, a man must be specially trained to be a shokhet (ritual slaughterer): if an untrained person who slaughters an animal, we are permitted to call the meat kosher if we have to, but generally speaking, it is not done, and the untrained are not permitted to slaughter.
Oh, that reminds me: D, do Muslims have rules about halal eating? I mean, for us Jews, kosher meat is only a part of keeping kosher: we separate all meat from dairy, and are not permitted to mix meat and dairy products at the same meal (let alone in the same dish), we keep separate dishes for meat and for dairy foods, and we often wait a set time between eating meat and dairy. Also, there are a lot more animals we are not permitted to eat than just pigs. A whole lot more. Most of them, really. What about you guys? Just pigs, or anything else? Do you have stuff you can't mix, or other things you're not supposed to eat. I mean, besides alcohol. I know about not drinking alcohol. Although now that I think of it, it was explained to me once that alcohol is forbidden because the Qur'an seeks to prohibit drunkenness. So could Muslims eat a dish that is cooked with wine or brandy, in which the alcohol has cooked off?
So one serious question I've had for a while is this. Islam, like Judaism is a religion of laws. Now, in Judaism, we have developed a number of movements (some might call them sects; we call them movements, since sect sounds divisive) that interpret halakhah (Jewish law) quite differently, resulting in a spectrum of theologies and practices that range from so liberal as to be nearly nonexistent (Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism) to liberal but traditional (Conservative Judaism) to traditional (Modern Orthodoxy) to fanatically conservative (ultra-Orthodoxy). I know that there are movements in Islam that are fanatically conservative, like Wahabism, but are there liberal movements? Is there even the beginning of any kind of movement to interpret and re-interpret Shari'a in progressive, socially liberal ways?
Finally, one last question about practice. In Judaism, we have formalized blessings (single-line liturgical units, which always begin with the Hebrew for "Blessed are you, YHVH our God, King of the Universe..." and then go on to thank or at least mention God's having created something or commanded us to do something) which we say before and after eating, drinking, performing ritual duties, going to the bathroom, seeing marvels of nature, or experiencing other phenomena in the world. So for example, before eating an apple, we make the blessing "Blessed are you, YHVH our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of trees," or when smelling a flower we make the blessing "Blessed are you, YHVH our God, King of the Universe, who creates fragrant plants," or when we light the candles that inaugurate the beginning of the weekly shabbat (sabbath), we make the blessing "Blessed are you, YHVH our God, King of the Universe, who sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to kindle lights for the shabbat." We have a zillion of these, for everything under the sun, every day. Do you guys have anything similar? Something by which you recall God frequently, something to kick up the everyday with a little holiness? It seems to me like something Muslims would have. Anything?
Thanks for doing this thread, man. It's a real service to your fellows.