The Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and others have their own ways of slaughtering livestock. Although the majority of Hindus are vegetarians, there are groups that consume meat, and they follow traditional methods of slaughter, through specific rituals. Sikhs, who usually avoid the slaughter of others, prefer meat that is slaughtered in their own way, and these practices are rooted in their religious and cultural traditions and beliefs.
Jews have their own slaughtering rituals, known as the “shehita” or “shehita kosher,” which follow specific laws in their law, requiring a trained person known as a “shehita” to perform the slaughter. The person must use a knife with certain specifications, and the slaughter must be carried out under supervision such as checking the animal after it is slaughtered to ensure that there are no defects that might make the meat non-kosher or halal. Finally, drying or removing the blood.
As for the rituals followed by Muslims, they are known as “halal slaughter,” and is carried out according to the following rules -- intention of slaughtering must be dedicated to God; use of a sharp and clean knife; the method or manner of slaughtering; the slaughterer must utter the words ‘In the name of God… God is Great’ before slaughtering the animal and the animal must be left alone until most of its blood has drained.
In a note by the well-known writer Dr. Khaled Montaser, he says that three Islamic fatwas have generated and continue to generate imaginary sums of money for specific parties, most of whom are religious, exceeding 3 trillion dollars annually. He did not provide any sources for that information, and that this is called “halal trade,” meaning slaughtering livestock and poultry in the Islamic way, or the way of the Quraysh.
The second-ranked fatwa is the fatwa of some “Islamic banks,” which rely on a weak and disputed legal interpretation that considers bank “interest” to be a type of “usury”! The third fatwa, which generates several billion more, is the fatwa prohibiting the use of alcohol in medicines, perfumes, and disinfectants, and prohibiting any amount, no matter how small, of pork fat in food products.
These fatwas or opinions have led the consumer to search for the (halal) product, even if it is more expensive and of lower quality, at the expense of the better, cheaper, and health-proven product!”
The halal merchant does not need to compete as long as these fatwas become a weapon in his hand, enabling him to sell any product, no matter how bad it is, and to overcome any competing product, no matter how good it is. The phrase “halal” that we find today on many products is perhaps the biggest sign of commercial fraud currently.
In non-Muslim countries, such as Brazil and Australia, which are the world’s largest exporters of poultry and livestock, which we were unable to provide for ourselves, there are official bodies affiliated with those countries that supervise the halal slaughter process.
However, over time, unofficial bodies succeeded in imposing themselves on them, in cooperation with powerful Arab and Islamic countries, which at the time refused to import any meat from those countries unless it was accompanied by certificates from these private bodies, which are basically affiliated with well-known religious parties, proving that the slaughter was done in a correct Islamic manner.
It is worth noting that issuing those certificates costs the exporting countries huge sums that go to the accounts of those parties.
This is done despite the fact that the regulatory bodies can carry out the task of supervising the slaughter in the best possible way, especially since a high percentage of their populations are Muslims.
Importing countries, like us, can save a lot of the cost of slaughtered livestock and poultry by canceling the certificates of religious parties, but “business” and “halal profit” require otherwise.
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By Ahmed alsarraf
