Assalamo Alaikum
I came across the following when browsing www.islamonline.net on the matter of Halal v Zabiha meat ....
Sheikh Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Ash-Shinqiti, Director of the Islamic Center of South Plains, Lubbock, Texas, states the following:
For example, I myself used to eat meat when I first came to the United States, but then I stopped eating beef for 3 years. Only after conducting research and several field studies, I feel confident that meat in the US is halal as long as you mention the name of Allah before eating it. There are three basic conditions that make meat halal as follows:
1. That the name of Allah is mentioned over the animal. This can be done after it is slaughtered.
2. That the method of slaughter causes the blood to be drained. Animals are slaughtered using this method in America.
3. That the animals are slaughtered in a merciful way. I believe that the methods used in the United States to slaughter animals are more merciful to animals than those used in many Muslim countries. Moreover, the US Congress issued a law called The Humane Slaughter of Animals Act. The law requires that specific methods that cause less pain to the animal be used for slaughtering. As for the claims by some scholars that a lot of these animals die as a result of being stunned before having their jugular vein slit, I conducted research on this subject and found that these claims are baseless. This is so because the reports by the general inspector of the US Government confirmed that a lot of animals do not get affected by the stunning so when they are slaughtered, they still experience pain.
Muslim scholars who forbid the consumption of beef based their argument on the assumption that stunning kills the animal before their jugular vein is slit. This is not true according to the report released by the general inspector.
Therefore, I believe animals slaughtered in the United States are halal to consume as long as you say the name of Allah before eating the meat.
Hamid Tirmizi
Walekum Assalam WRWB
Answer
Eating of meat prepared by the People of the Book has always been a controversial issue. The points mentioned in the above submission are not new. Maulana Maududi R has fully rebutted these arguments; for fiqhi arguments, please see his article on this issue in the section “Maududi Corner” of this website; however, I would try to discuss the issue logically in the light of the following verse (5: 5)
Çáíóæãó ÃõÍöáøó áóßõãõ ÇáØøóíøöÈóÇÊõ ۖ æó ØóÚóÇãõ ÇáøóÐöíäó ÃõæÊõæÇÇáßöÊóÇÈó Íöáøõ õáøóßõã æóØóÚóÇãõßõã Íöáøõ õáøóåõã ۖ
The base of the arguments of those who advocate that the meat prepared in the West is halal is the middle sentence which translates as “And the food of those who were given Book is allowed for you.” One should not interpret this part of the verse independently, by ignoring the commands of the first and the last parts, because all three are interlinked with each other in the same one verse. The first part says that “Today the pure food is allowed for you.” In other words, only pure food can be eaten by the Muslims. There are two types of animals and birds: 1. Halal, such as sheep, cows, pigeons, etc. and; 2. Haram, such as pigs, vultures, etc. Now does this mean that we can kill the halal animals and birds the way we like and eat it? No! Before we eat such animals, we have to make them pure. How do we make them pure? We make the flesh of a halal animal pure 1. By shedding its blood and; 2. By pronouncing the name of Allah at the same time or before killing the halal animal. When an animal is killed or it dies, before the name of Allah is invoked, it becomes a carrion or dead meat which is haram. Now Allah had ordered the same procedure of making meat pure to the people of the Book, too. This is the reason that Allah has allowed the believers to eat the meat prepared by the People of the Book, as by the third sentence or part the meat prepared by the Muslims can be consumed by the People of the Book, because the Muslims make their halal food pure. If we do not interlink the three sentences together, then the following anomalies arise:
1. The third sentence that “Your food is allowed to the People of the Book” (Na‘oozo billah) becomes redundant and meaningless, because the People of the Book do not believe in the Qur’an; and hence, they do not need its permission to eat or not to eat something.
2. The independent meaning, without any restrictions put by the first and the third sentences of the verse, of the second sentence that their food is allowed to the Muslims will give permission to the Muslims to eat haram animals, birds, and drinks, such as pork, and alcoholic drinks, etc., available in the markets of the People of the Book.
3. It will also give permission to the Muslims to eat the meat of the dead bodies, killed without using the name of Allah, available in the markets of the West; because the manpower of its butcheries generally do include those who are secularists, atheists, and polytheists, etc. Who can expect them to remember Allah at the time of killing the halal animals? Moreover, the secular society does not require the employees of its butcheries to kill animals in the name of God.
4. Lastly, every Muslim is already supposed to say Bismillah, before eating halal and pure food or, in fact, taking any action in life. This start of action in the name of Allah is a prayer to invoke His blessings; it does not make a haram thing halal and pure. Can a Muslim eat dead and haram meat, by just saying Bismillah?
Allah knows the best.
Dr. Syed Hasanuddin Ahmad