Dhabihah

Template:Fiqh-HygDhabīḥah (ذَبِيْحَة) is the prescribed method of ritual slaughter of all animals excluding camels, locusts, fish and most sea-life per Islamic law. This method of slaughtering animals consists of a swift, deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck, cutting the jugular veins and carotid arteries of both sides but leaving the spinal cord intact. The objective of this technique is to more effectively drain the body of the animal's blood, resulting in more hygienic meat, and to minimize the pain and agony for the animal. The precise details of the slaughtering method arise largely from Islamic tradition, rather than direct Quranic mandate. It is used to comply with the conditions stated in the Qur'an:

"Forbidden to you are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah. that which hath been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by being gored to death; that which hath been eaten by a wild animal; unless ye are able to slaughter it; that which is sacrificed on stone [Altar?]; [forbidden] also is the division by raffling with arrows: that is impiety..." – Al-Maidah 5:3

The term Dhabīḥah is often inaccurately used as a synonym for the word halal. But used in conjunction, "Dhabīḥah Halal" is the term used to describe any meat or food that is permissible as per Islamic law.

Slaughtering Process

The slaughtering process referred to as Ḏabīḥah, is regulated by a set rules that assure health of the animal to be slaughtered and conformance to Islamic religious law, which is derived from the Qur'an and Hadith.

Prerequisites

According to the laws of Ḏabīḥah halal, certain prerequisites must be met before an animal is slaughtered[3]:

• The animal must not be a forbidden substance as per the Quran.
• The slaughter itself must be done by a sane (mentally competent) adult Muslim. Some Muslims also consider it acceptable to eat the meat slaughtered by "People of the Book" (Template:Lang-ar). Though there is debate on the issue, currently both methods are acceptable under Islamic Law.

Several other conditions are also stated: the knife's blade should be extremely sharp yet not be sharpened in front of the animal, the animal must not be slaughtered in front of other animals[4], and the animal's eyes and ears must be checked to ensure its health and suitability for slaughter. If it is deemed to be healthy, it is given water to drink (to quench its thirst). The animal should then be stood to face the Qibla[5], and the actual slaughter can begin.

Slaughter

The act of slaughtering itself is preceded by mentioning the name of God. Invoking the name of God at the moment of slaughtering is sometimes interpreted as acknowledgment of God's right over all things. Furthermore, it is an asking of permission to take the life of the animal to be slaughtered, and endows the slaughterer with a sense of gratitude for God's creation, even prior to partaking in the meat of the animal.

Thus, the slaughter itself is preceded by the words "In the name of God, God is the Greatest (Bismillah, Allahu Akbar). It is not regarded appropriate to use the phrase "Bismillah al Raĥman Al Raĥim" (In the name of God the Beneficent the Merciful) in this situation, because slaughtering is an act of subduement rather than mercy.

According to Islamic tradition, the conventional method used to slaughter the animal involves cutting the large arteries in the neck along with the esophagus and trachea with one swipe of an unserrated blade. Muslims argue it provides a relatively painless death, but some veterinary and animal rights groups dispute this claim . It also helps to effectively drain blood from the animal. This is important because the consumption of blood itself is forbidden in Islam. Muslims consider this method of killing the animal to be cleaner and more merciful to the animal.

While the blood is draining, the animal is not handled until it has died.

Controversies

Animal rights

Main article: Bans on ritual slaughter

Critics of Ḏabīḥah halal, most notably some animal rights groups, contend that this method of slaughter 'causes severe suffering to animals' compared to when the animal is stunned before slaughter.

In the United Kingdom, the government funded Farm Animal Welfare Council recommended that conventional Ḏabīḥah (along with Kashrut slaughter) without prior stunning be abolished. The FAWC chairwoman of the time, Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, said 'This is a major incision into the animal and to say that it doesn't suffer is quite ridiculous'. According to Dr Peter Jinman, president of the British Veterinary Association, vets are "looking at what is acceptable in the moral and ethical society we live.

The UK Farm Animal Welfare Council says that the method by which Kosher and Halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and it should be banned immediately. According to FAWC it can take up to two minutes for cattle to bleed to death, thus amounting to animal abuse. Compassion in World Farming also supported the recommendation saying "We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter." The UK government rejected its recommendations.

Various research papers on cattle slaughter collected by Compassion In World Farming mention that "after the throat is cut, large clots can form at the severed ends of the carotid arteries, leading to occlusion of the wound (or “ballooning” as it is known in the slaughtering trade). Nick Cohen wrote in the New Statesman, "Occlusions slow blood loss from the carotids and delay the decline in blood pressure that prevents the suffering brain from blacking out. In one group of calves, 62.5 per cent suffered from ballooning. Even if the slaughterman is a master of his craft and the cut to the neck is clean, blood is carried to the brain by vertebral arteries and it keeps cattle conscious of their pain."

For the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Humane Society International, "the animals that are slaughtered according to Kosher and Halal should be securely restrained, particularly the head and neck, before cutting the throat" as "movements (during slaughter) results in a poor cut, bad bleeding, slow loss of consciousness if at all and pain."

A study done by Professor Wilhelm Schulze et al. at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany, with electrodes surgically implanted on the skull of sheep and calves, concluded that "[t]he slaughter in the form of ritual cut is, if carried out properly, painless in sheep and calves according to the EEG recordings and the missing defensive actions." This study is cited by the German Constitutional Court in its permitting of dhabiha slaughtering. The Muslim Council of Great Britain has argued that, during Ḏabīḥah slaughter, "The brain is instantaneously starved of blood and there is no time to start feeling any pain."

Inducing unconsciousness

Electrocution is frowned upon by many Muslims, since it causes "small blood vessels (to) rupture" and leaves the "meat tainted with blood which is full of germs, bacteria and waste material." [6]

Stunning the animal with a bolt-gun, as is the standard practice in FDA-approved slaughtering houses, may cause instantaneous death. Some Muslims regard meat from such a slaughter to be haraam, considering such meat as carrion. In other cases, in some animals with thicker skulls, the bolt-gun has to be administered more than once, causing harm and suffering to the animal, which goes against the dictates of an Islamic slaughter.

It is for these reasons that there are ongoing questions and conversations within the North American Muslim community as to whether meat processed in these slaughter houses meet the standard of 'Halal' (as opposed to Zabiha). At center to this debate is the doubt as to whether this meat could qualify under the Allowed category of the food of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians). The first consideration being that standard slaughtering methods could cause the animal to die in a way other than slaughter (death through exsanguination), and, secondly, given that the actual slaughter may not be performed by a member of any one of the three Abrahamic religions.

Debates still rage among Muslim jurists and the general Muslim population about whether or not stunning, anaesthetics, or other forms of inducing unconsciousness in the animal prior to slaughter are permissible as per Islam.

Ḏabīḥah in relation to other religions

Followers of some religions are prohibited from consuming meat slaughtered in the fashion described above. The Rehat Maryada of Sikhism states that in Sikhism, "eating the meat of an animal slaughtered the Muslim way;" is strictly prohibited. The Kshatriya of Hinduism also do not consume meat killed by Muslims.

Christianity

Many Muslims conclude that the Christian method of slaughtering of the present age are lacking in Islamic methods and contradict Muslim belief, thus making their meat haraam.

However, Christians in Ethiopia and neighbouring countries still practice ritual slaughter and Muslims from those countries eat meat slaughtered by them.

Judaism

Main article: Comparison of Dhabiĥa Halal and kashrut

There are many similarities between the laws concerning Ḏabīḥah and kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws.

Muslims are divided as to whether or not Jewish slaughter suffices as a replacement for Islamic dhabiha halal. Some claim that Jewish slaughter leaves out the Takbeer (saying: God is Great) and changes the method of slaughter, thus, their meat is Haraam. Others claim that the slaughtering processes are similar enough in practice and in theory to render animals slaughtered by Jewish laws as halal.

Jeremiah J Berman, in 1941 wrote: "At the present day in most of the Islamic world Moslems purchase Jewish meat, though they will not buy Christian meat. This is true in Istanbul, Bombay, Beirut, Jerusalem and Mogador. Contemporary Moslems in these cities consider Jewish slaughtering as fulfiling all the requirements of their law, while they regard the slaughtering performed by Christians as done in contravention thereof.

In Yemen ... Jewish meat is not acceptable." Berman also reports that Jewish meat slaughtered in Salonica (Thessaloniki) was not acceptable to Muslims.

To be kosher - i.e. fit for consumption by religious Jews, meat must be slaughtered by a Jewish shohet who holds a licence from a rabbi and has been examined on the laws of shehitah. This alone means that halal meat is forbidden to Jews. The requirements for the shape of the knife are more severe, the knife must be free from a single nick and the method of cutting is exactly defined. In addition there is an inspection of the lungs that mammals must pass (bedikah) that muslims do not have.

See also

• Halal
• Shechita Jewish method of ritual slaughter
• Legal aspects of ritual slaughter
• Islamic dietary laws
• Comparison of Dhabiĥa Halal and kashrut
• Difference between Halal and Dhabiha
• Jhatka Hindu method of ritual slaughter to minimize pain by quickly killing the animal with a single blow (also used by Sikhs).

External links

• Halal Monitoring Committee
• Laws of Islam concerning food including laws of ritual slaughter
• Is conventional meat Halal?-Green Zabiha