Halal Meat: A Disturbing Lesson

WARNING: THIS POST IS GRUESOME!


M uslims eat meat, but much like the Jewish term "kosher," the meat that Muslims eat is supposed to be "halal." What makes meat halal? Well, there are several conditions required. First, the animal to be slaughtered must be healthy. The kill must be done in a humane way so that the animal's suffering is kept to a minumum. Muslims use the method of one single swift swipe with a razor sharp blade across the animal's neck which severs the windpipe, the jugular vein and the carotid artery. This way the animal's death is quick and least painful. Right before the stroke of the knife, a recitation from the Quran is said aloud. Finally, all the blood must be drained from the animal.


There are also some other minor requirements as well. These include that the animal must be fed normally and given water just prior to the slaughter. Other animals cannot view the kill. The knife blade must be extremely sharp and should be four times the width of the animal's neck. The animal should also be positioned facing Makkah.

I remember when I was a kid growing up in Arizona, we had some friends who lived on a ranch out of town. One weekend when I was about ten years old, we drove out to the ranch, and the group of us kids - about 10 of us - were told to stand over by the fence. A cow was led out before us by two ranchhands. One of them was carrying a rifle. They shot the cow in the head and hoisted it up by its back legs, hanging it upside down. Then they slit the cow's throat to drain all the blood out. Before our eyes, they skinned it and butchered it until all that was left was a large bloody puddle on the ground beneath. As horrified as I was, I felt that I couldn't move and I found it strangely interesting. It is something that I have never forgotten to this day.

My husband grew up in Saudi Arabia back in the 1950s, and it was pretty common back then for the families to kill the animals they were going to eat. I don't think they had much in the way of supermarkets in this country back in those days. So he remembers being exposed to this ritual from quite an early age, and it didn't traumatize him. The kill was always done in the Islamic halal way, and respect and thanks were shown to the animal which was about to become their next meal. Children were brought up with this as a normal part of their life. I don't think it had any ill effects on the kids - this was what needed to be done if they wanted to eat. Nowadays most Saudi families buy their meat at the supermarket or a meat market, already neatly packaged into different cuts of meat. Today, families usually only buy an animal to have it slaughtered for holidays or special occasions like weddings.

Recently a friend of mine, Manal, told me about an incident that happened at her ten-year-old son's Saudi school. A rabbit was brought into the classroom and the boys were allowed to play with the fluffy creature for a couple of hours or so. Then the teacher took the animal to demonstrate how an Islamic halal kill is performed. But when the demonstration was over, the animal was tossed into the garbage can! Manal's son was horrified. The event deeply disturbed him. He told his mom that he could understand if it was killed so someone could eat it, or even if the fur was going to be used for something. But to allow the kids to play with the cute little bunny, and then murder it and toss it into the garbage - what kind of senseless and disturbing lesson is this? Manal called the school to voice her objections and displeasure and was told that she was the only parent complaining about it! I find it hard to believe that other children weren't equally as distraught as Manal's son was and that no other parents made a fuss about it.

I don't know about customs around the world in regards to this subject, but I find what happened at this school to be reprehensible. This lesson makes a mockery of any compassion for life and dismisses the humane treatment of animals as a joke. What value is there in teaching children to kill animals like this?