Another question about Islamic dietary law . . .
It appears to me that “halal” and “zabihah” refer to separate concepts when discussing meat. Muslims must only eat halal meat - which doesn’t come from unlawful animals (pigs, carrion-eaters, etc.) and is slaughtered in accordance with Sharia.
Zabihah, in contrast, appears to be going over and above the minimum requirements - while it’s sinful to eat food that’s not halal, it’s better to only eat meat that is zabihah. So what exactly does “zabihah” mean? And, since Muslims are permitted to eat animals slaughtered by People of the Book - Christians and Jews - is it considered better to eat only animals slaughtered by Muslims? I don’t understand how an animal slaughtered by a Jew or (especially) a Christian could be appropriate to eat, since an animal must be ‘consecrated’ (if you will) to Allah as it’s slaughtered - which is not a Christian practice at all, and Jews don’t invoke God over each individual animal that’s slaughtered. Is the rule that say that animals slaughtered by People of the Book is acceptable an exception to these other rules, or does it only apply if the Christian or Jew slaughtering the animal invokes God while doing so? And how does this relate to “halal” and “zabihah” in the first place?
I’m giving this a bump, because I know there are Muslims here who could explain this for me. I hope Aldebaran does ego-searches . . .
I doubt it.
But I am morally certain he searches for the words “Muslim” and “Islam” on a frequent basis.
mmmmmm… No. Never even thought of doing that. I have already enough “Islam” and "Muslim’ to deal with in real life as it is. So whenever I encounter something “Muslim” or "Islam here, that is because it happens to catch my view when visiting the forums.
About the OP.
“zabihah”: The first letter is no a Z but an emphatic D and the ” i “ is long. It means slaughter animal; blood sacrifice; offering etc…
From the verb dabaha which in this context means “to kill by slitting the throat”.
Mentining the name of God while doing this is not that much a matter of “consecrating”. You kill the animal for food telling/recognising that this is permitted to you by God. As such you also are ware of it - and recognise - that animals are also creatures of God and deserve your respect. Animals can be slaughtered for food, but they are not your play-tools. The command is that you must be kind with animals and that you must avoid to cause them pain or discomfort. This leads to the command that before you kill an animal for food, you must feed and water it and you must avoid that the animal becomes afraid or aware of what you plan to do. This makes that every action for preparing the slaughter (like sharpening the knife) should be done without the animal being aware of it. An animal that is in agony or suffering when you slaughter it because it is stressed by your way of handling it, should not be considered halal.
The justification for eating meat slaughtered by Jews/Christians can be found in Al Qur’an, al-Ma’ida V; 5 * And of those who were given the Scripture (before you) is permitted to you and your food is permitted to them*
However, the interpretation of this verse caused and still causes disagreements. There is no problem with the acceptance of the “kosher” animals slaughtered by Jews. Yet the Christian worship of Jesus as God and the exaggeration of some Christians in the reverence of Mary which by some is seen as a form of worship and the fact that they also pray to their saints, is used as argument against the lawfulness of animals slaughtered by them = not being certain if they didn’t mention the name of Jesus, Mary, a saint while killing the animal, be it in words or thought. (In the same line lies the argumentation that the meat of porc was initially also prohibited for Christians with reference to the Bible and the fact that pointing out that Jesus as a Jew did not eat it.)
This problem – if caused by a scholar’s interpretation - can be easily resolved by implementing the rule that what is not known, can not be a transgression of the law.
Since AQ permits the food of Jews and Christians, and you can not know if Christans yes or no mentioned the name of God while slaughtering the animal, and since there is no law that commands you to ask them about this, one can assume that this food is indeed halal. Support for this view can be found in the Hadith.
The advise that is usually given to avoid every further problem you might have with this, is that before you eat from this food you yourself mention the name of God over it. In daily life Muslims do this anyway before starting to eat no matter what.
Salaam. A
'Kay.
Wouldn’t be the first time my Ignorance needed fighting.
I don’t think “supposing something” can be classyfied under “ignorance”.
But how did you come to the thought that I put on my PC-reading-glasses and then let the poor SDMB search function eat all the server’s capacities for seaching “Muslim” and Islam" for me?
aaaaaaaaaaah… It is now a long time since the BBQ-Thing saw a thread with my name as title… Now you gave the Fanclub inspiration to claim that I am such an obsessed fundamentalist Muslim that my fanatiicsm brings the server down.
Salaam. A
Aldeberan I also assumed you searched for current threads dealing with Islam. Not because I picture you as a fanatic, but because you have done a great deal of studying on the subject and can answer questions, and disprove myths and misinformation.
I assume that Polycarp does searches on Christianity, and that ZevSteinhardt does searches on Judaism for the same reasons.
BTW- If you are ever in Philadlephia, I must take you to one of the cities many wonderful falafel resataurants.
Thank you for the invitation, sounds interesting. I don’t think I ever made it to Philadelphia or it must have been while I was unconscious (have the movie with that name though) .
As for the Muslim and Islam issues… I never looked at my contributions to this message board like that. I didn’t became a member for such a reason.
Anyway: I’m now studying Harry Potter since my son came with questions about some ball game you must play while flying on a broomstick. I felt a bit idiotic that I could not explain the rules (I did not tell him I never even heard of it. I said it was not popular when I was a child). My daughter on the other hand asked me if she can have lessons from a teacher named Professor Anderling. She thinks I know all the academics in the whole world and as such I must avoid to fall flat on my face. So I told her I would think about it while I panicked by the thought that I had not even one single masterwork of a certain J.K. Rowling. That void in my library is filled now, but it takes some study to become familiar with the issue.
After that I must start writing on the next volume of the Adipocere because we live now in Exiting Times of Transformation and the Believers have need of a firm guidance.
Salaam. A
Go on, ask about Quidditch in Cafe Society, Aldebaran. Then show the scary 10-page geek-fest to your children - they’ll look at you in a whole new way!
Aldeberan I’d say the proper response is ‘Broomsticks? When I was young we flew on carpets. Of course, in those days, we had to be careful of rukhs. They finally got rid of all the rukhs so it would be safe for airplanes. I felt safer that day. But, also sad. Somehow, a bird large enough to carry off an elephant made the world a more magical place.’
BTW- As I can’t e-mail you, I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to join us in this circumcision thread.
Aldebaran, thank you for once more for relieving me of a bit of my ignorance; your knowledge of Islam is impressive - many folks don’t have half the understanding of their religion that you do of yours.
mmmm… Well, most Muslims don’t take it as one of their studyfields either. I came to the lunatical idea to undertake an academical dissection on my own religion and its history and then went into insanity grade, which is a requirement to come to the idea to include the Western approach.
I managed to survive that hell more or less unscarred, which does not mean that both my Western and non-Western teachers didn’t want to throw me out of the class now and then.
It was also always funny to undertake exams and remember just in time where I was and what the more or less expected view was you had to bring across. Sometimes I also forgot that your prof. more or less expects you to recognize that he is the one who is supposed to have it right. No matter which language he speaks and how he looks like… Until you have your diplome 
.
Salaam. A