From: ahmed@dsg.cs.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Forbidden Food
Date: 8 Jan 1993 20:44:40 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
Reply-To: ahmed@dsg.cs.tcd.ie
NNTP-Posting-Host: geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu
Orig-To: shamshoo@shelley.u.washington.edu (Shams Hasan)
Originator: gwydion@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu

In soc.religion.islam you write:

>Dear Muslims,

>I have recently gone through the Quran to settle the issue of meats ie. beef,
>lamb, and chicken and any other non-haraam animal food, and have have found
>on over eight occasions the message about the method of killing the animals in
>question mentioned above.

>On all times, the message says, donot eat of meats that are unclean and unwholesome, and donot eat of food that is killed in the name of any other diety then
>Allah. 

I am sure you did not get the clear message, although you don't need to
go through the whole Quran for that. You need to read two verses in
Surah 5. that is all.

One verse specifies which meat is unlawful to eat and the other says
that the food of the people of the book is lawful to us.

I will ask you a question!!!
What about the food of the muslims ! is it lawful.
The immidiate answer will be yes.
But what will be the answer if you know that the food of that Muslim
contains swine meat or any forbidden meat?  This kind of food is
forbidden. SO my message is: make sure that what you eat is lawful.

Note that food is very important issue, and we have to consider Allah,
to remember him when we eat, and to make sure that what we eat is pure
and Halal.

Also,
I think this subject had been beaten to death by many scholars, and
there are some different opinions about it.  The main thing that I want
to say here is that a Muslim should be concious of Allah, particularly
when there are different opinions (grey area).

>As far as I know from talking with FDA and Pakistanis who work with FDA in the
>meat quality control areas, that no other name is invoked when the animals
>such as chicken, beef, and lambs are slaughthered and they are slaughtered in
>totally hygenic standards espcially much higher ones than what Pakistanis eat
>every day in Pakistan, where no one questions the issue of proper Hallal etc
>at all. 

It is not the hygenic standards that decide wether the meat is Halal or
Haram.  Of course that does not mean that you should ignore the hygenic
conditions of the meat.


>So, my question is for people who are both VERY consicous of the Hallal issue,
>even though they donot practice the FARZ or the MUST areas of Islam, ie
>daily prayer 5 times a day, fasting 30 days in Ramadaan, Charity or Zakaat,
>and Haj or Pilgrimage to Mecca, and show no visible sign in Aaqirat or
>Day of Judgement, why is it that YOU make this the MOST IMPORTANT part of
>the daily life ?

I think what you need is to remind  those people to be more practicing
Muslims and to take care of the farz. I cannot see, however, why should
they ignore every thing about Islam and become more ruthless!!!

>The reason I ask is due to some very disturbing trend of new Muslim students
>who come here from "Islamic" countries, and starve themselves due to ignorance
>and misguidance from self proclaimed mullahs here in the U.S.

I think this is a hypothetical situation. There are many alternative
kinds of food, and there is Halal meat, almost every where. 


>Best Regards,
>Shams Hasan.

Ahmed.

Ahmed I. El-Habbash,
Department of Computer Science, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam