Inspired by the thread on US law vs. kosher/halal slaughtering…
Seeing as how I keep kosher myself (albeit in a not orthodoxly rigorous way) I pretty much know the kashrut laws, but I know just about nothing about the halal rules. So I’m curious: is it possible for meat to be prepared in such a way that it’s both kosher and halal?
IDNKH (I Do Not Keep Halal, LOL) but I believe the rules for Koshering are stricter, and that those who keep Halal are permitted to buy Kosher meat.
The following short thread touched on this discussion briefly:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126261
As far as I know, like Hello said, all kosher meat is halal, but not all halal meat is kosher. Rabbit can be halal, for example, but it can never be kosher. However, I believe that any halal meat that comes from an kosher animal, except for the cuts of meat that can’t be kosher (near the sciatic nerve) is kosher.
Kosher meat is usually considered halal, but some scrupulous Muslims don’t consider it halal, because halal butchering requires a prayer said before the throat is cut, and kosher butchering doesn’t require that prayer.
Of course, ask a rabbi or qadi for a more official ruling.
A few years back the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about a Rabbi and Mullah who opened a delli together. The only extra step was that their butcher had to say two prayers over the animals.
But as other posters have stated, not all kosher meat is hallal and vice versa.
Still, it simplifies things greatly. I know of no major hallal brands in the United States. But, a Moslem can buy any of the many kosher brands of meat and be sure that they contain no pork.Halal meat (slaughtered as such) cannot be kosher. In order to be kosher, the animal must be slaughtered by a shochet, a trained ritual slaughterer. Such people must be Jews.
To my knowledge (and I could be wrong on this – if so, please correct me) Muslims can eat kosher meat only where no Halal alternative is available. In addition, I believe that if they are buying processed or cooked meats, that it contains nothing which is forbidden to Muslims (such as wine, which can be in kosher meat, but not in Halal).
Zev Steinhardt
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Hmmm. I’ve got to see if I can find the article. Or perhaps Muslim Guy will pop in and gives information on Islamic ritual slaughter practices.
I thought about that, but I don't see it as big obstacle. Most sausages and processed meats contain pork products. When buying Jimmy Dean or Oscar Mayer, a thorough check of the ingredients is necessary. But I can't recall coming across Empire or Shofar products that contain alcohol and are not prominently labeled as such eg Turkey with Mother Guld's own shabbas wine and matzo meal stuffing!Actually, I was thinking here more about cooked dishes ordered in resturaunts, which are sometimes cooked with alcohol.
Zev Steinhardt
There is yet another factor that prevents standard Halal meat from being kosher.
After a kosher animal is slaughtered, its organs are checked for various diseases, lesions and perforations. Some of these defects can render an animal non-kosher. These organs must be checked in a kosher animal. I am not sure if they must be checked in a standard Halal animal. If they aren’t, then the meat is not kosher.
Zev Steinhardt
Actually, kosher slaughter is supposed to be preceded by the recital of a blessing(“Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, who… commanded us concerning slaughter”), although it is true that the omission of this blessing doesn’t invalidate the slaughtering.
As a sidenote, I’ve read somewhere that in the 1860s the Jewish community in Jerusalem obtained a ruling from the local Muslim religious authorities to the effect that shechitah is acceptable as halal. The point of this was that it allowed the Jewish community there to put its shechitah on an economically viable footing, since there are inevitably animals that are found - after proper slaughtering - to have had fatal (though noncontagious) conditions that render them nonkosher but still safe to eat (and still halal, presumably), and this ruling provided them a market for that meat.
I never meant to suggest that all kosher meat is hallal or that all hallal meat is kosher. However, I hold that with some effort it is possible to produce meat which is both hallal and kosher. The two terms are not interchangable, nor ar they mutually exclusive.
Emphasis added:
Eh? This seems to contradict other statements I have seen that the slaughtering need only be overseen in some sense – how else is mass produced (k) meat kosher?
I don’t know that this is actual Quranic injunction versus just silly prejudice / tradition.
As to your follow-up on the inspection, to my limited knowledge Halaal should include some inspection. At this point one gets down into religio-legal niceties. I begin to suspect that one could end up with the answer going either way depending on the interpretation, but I’m not well-enough informed to know.
I’m fairly certain that the animal must be slaughtered by a Jewish shochet. However, I will allow for the possibility that I am wrong and do some further research and check my Shulchan Aruch tonight (or, RedNaxela, who is more knowledgeable than I, can probably answer sooner).
Zev Steinhardt
I trust you would know, but I presume since I have heard the other statement that there is some difference of opinion? Or I was simply misinformed.
Well, never having planned on being a butcher, I never went into these laws in depth. However, based on the knowledge of them that I do have, I would have to believe that the slaughterer would have to be Jewish.
For example, there are five types of motions during a slaughter that invalidates the slaughter. Among them are pausing during teh slaughter, pressing with the knife, etc. I doubt a non-Jew would know the deatils of these laws and I’m also fairly sure that some of these disqualifications are not things that could be detected simply by observation. That’s why I would think that the slaughterer must be Jewish. However, as I said earlier, I’ll look it up when I get home tonight.
Zev Steinhardt
That’s true, but what I meant is that kosher slaughtering isn’t preceded by the prayer that some Muslims believe is neccesary to make the slaughtering halal.
I’ve been trying to get in touch with the Washington Vaad to ask them about the legitimacy or lack thereof of halal slaughtering, but they don’t seem to want to answer their phones.
I did some checking. Yoreh Deah 2:1 clearly states that the slaughter of a non-Jew renders the animal non-kosher.
Zev Steinhardt
I know at least one Muslim living in the U.S. who has trouble finding halal food in a lot of places, and just eats kosher instead. He says if you ask for halal food in most places they won’t know what you’re talking about, and that kosher is so close he doesn’t have a problem with it.
Cite? 
Seriously, I don’t think that’s true - I just have online versions of a lot of sefarim, so I can often look things up faster (as a wise man said, you can’t grep dead trees). When it comes to the ability to explain Jewish concepts to the SDMB public, I think that - quite the contrary - you (and Chaim) are the knowledgeable ones.
But thanks for the compliment! And a Pitka Tava to you.
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Are these actually on-line (as in on the WWW) or do you have them on CD?
I know of a Yad Chazakah, Tanach and Shas on line, but have yet to find a Shulchan Aruch.
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Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.
And to you as well. Have a good Yom Tov.
Zev Steinhardt