Regarding the French Ban On Halāl Slaughter – Ask Shaykh YQ #187

Our first email comes from France. Brother Amir says that the French government has announced that it will ban halal slaughter soon. And they say that it is true cruel. And so he is asking that, how can we defend the Islamic manner of slaughter? That it is not actually cool. And also he's asking you for any advice regarding this bad.

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Now, firstly, this is of course, a time sensitive question. That is why I'm answering this ahead of the queue. France has just announced that they're going to ban now here, you have to be a little bit accurate. Our brother Amir said that they're going to ban halal slaughter. And I did some research and I contacted you know, some of my colleagues and friends in France to be more precise, and the French government has not announced that it's going to ban halal slaughter in those words, however, what they have announced is that they're going to enforce a sanitary restrictions and a new procedure on slaughterhouses. And there's going to be a long list of things of them is that you

cannot electrocute the animal that sorry that you must electric ate the animal, sorry, they're gonna ban not electro the double negative there. So the Muslim slaughterhouses did not use electrocution on chickens. And France wants to implement an EU wide edict which says that it is more humane to stand the animal to stand the chicken and then to execute it. So they have a long list of conditions that they're going to enforce. And these conditions will disproportionately affect Muslim owned, you know, they have producing factories, and therefore, it is being presented as a halaal ban. Now, technically, as I said, it is not a halal meat ban, it is an enforcement of a long list of policies.

But the Muslim owners seem to be the ones that who will take the brunt of those policies. Now, this might be an innocent gesture, such that we should say, Oh, well, this is just them implementing their their version of what they think is more humane. But you see, our shady eye tells us that we should have trust an oven or good thoughts. In the general norm. That is what we're supposed to do. However, when there is a track record of hostility, when there is an entire long resume of one legislation after another that is aimed to almost criminalize really the religion of Islam. In this particular case, we are not told to be naive. And even though I would not call it a halaal ban,

because that's not technically accurate. I think that it is fair to state that we should be highly suspicious of this move coming at this time from this particular, you know, country and government. Because the reality is that this nation state has manifested its deep seated hatred of the religion of Islam for many, many decades. And this is now becoming exponentially worse. And so there's very little room left for us to have her son oven to think positive thoughts against this particular nation. You know, a number of academic studies have shown that I just checked in myself today, a number of academic studies have shown that France along with Austria, and one or two other European

countries are amongst the worst Islamophobic countries in all of the Western world, and perhaps even the entire globe. And the amount of racism that our Muslim brothers and sisters face in France is something that we Americans and Canadians and Australians, really, we don't even understand, you know, from birth, not even from birth from before birth, the ghettoization of the North African Muslim populations, and then the discrimination against them at every single stage of life, from their education to their positions at university because again, this is all something that is free over there as a socialist, you know, type of democracy where everybody should get a slot, but your

name and your background and your hijab is going to speak volumes about which position you get, and where you are hired or not hired and where you can even rent and not rent. It's nothing in law, but in practice, there is a second class citizenship from the beginning to the end, and that is why this new law that is coming really it is highly suspicious and we need to look at this ban in the

context of an ongoing campaign to demonize everything from the hijab to so many masajid have been shut down in the wake of the the the the sad and the tragic killing, and we have condemned that. But it is a lone person that did that. And you take it out on an entire community. And we say that this is very, very suspicious that you know, these laws are going to target primarily Muslim practices, you know, this, it's not something they don't know. And for them to bring about the set of laws, and to put them in, by the way, even though this particular bill does not mention the word halala, and whatnot. However, in the last few years, a number of French Members of Parliament have raised

potential bills to ban halal slaughter by name. And so in the wake of all of this, we now come to this new bill here. And we have to say that it is highly, highly suspicious. And it reeks of Islamophobia, even though there's no word in there that we can pinpoint. So we have to say this as a beginning. The second point is that our brother asks that what is to be done with the claim that it is inhumane to slaughter an animal without electrocuting it, right, because again,

the notion of stunning is something that many European countries and many Western countries think it is the moral thing to do. And so for chickens, they will immerse chickens in very hot, almost boiling water that has a dosage of electric current running in it. And so the chickens become stunned, and they're knocked unconscious, and then they're, then they are basically slaughtered by machine. And when it comes to a goat, and when it comes to cows, and other such livestock, then the studying process involves typically a bolt gun, which is taken to the head, and it basically releases a dart or a metal cylinder that goes into the brain of the cow, and then comes back. And so

it is completely stunned and falls to the ground. And in our shadia, we frown upon these practices, we do not think that this is good to do. And we do this for two reasons. Firstly, because we feel that this is more painful to the animal than the actual slaughtering, we feel that this is torture. And then secondly, and this is the more big bigger problem as well is that through stunning such animals, a percentage of them might actually die. And so if you're going to cut off the head of a chicken, after it is dead, there is no point in slaughtering the chicken, it is considered to be dead meat or carry on, or Mater. It doesn't matter if you say Bismillah, and you use a sharp knife

and you cut off the when the chicken is already dead, or the cow if it is stunned and it dies, it doesn't matter what procedure you do that is dead meat, you might as well just bang something we might as well just try to build a road kill it is the equivalent the same thing, you know, an animal that dies because the car accidentally hits it, versus an animal that has been electrocuted and died. It is the same thing. We are not allowed to eat such animals, we have to have an animal that is sacrificed properly, and the blood is gushing out. So the animal must be alive now. They accuse us of being inhumane. And the response to this is that there has not been any documented study and

survey scientific survey that demonstrates that either of these two is more humane to the best of my knowledge. And I again, look this up. I've done this research a number of years ago. And I've also done this to answer this question as well. And the the predominant opinion is that we do not know which of the two methods I'm being very fair here. Now, I personally believe that sacrificing with a sharp instrument, and slaughtering via the jugular vein is more humane, and it is less painful. But I'm talking about in the scholar, the scientific community that is not religious, they're doing both of these surveys. And what conclusions they have reached is that it is indefinite, we do not know

for sure which of these two is less painful or more painful? And of course, how can they know that? How can you assess the pain of an animal? How is it possible to see which one is more painful? So in reality, scientifically, we actually do not know when a number of medical surveys have been done. And there appears to be no conclusive answer. And one thing that people don't take into account is that the slaughtering of animals is a messy and bloody business no matter how you go about it. And that is why many people are going vegan or vegetarian because they don't believe that, you know, there is a higher being they don't believe that that higher being has allowed us you see we as

Muslims, we have an ethical hierarchy, we as Muslims, we have the moral license from the Creator Himself. Literally Allah xojo says I created these animals for you. Right that that had the luck on their hands.

For you Sahar, Allah calm, he has made them subjugated to you to a Quran, I mean, who you're eating from them. So the Quran is very clear that Allah has given us the moral authority to sacrifice these animals if we do it in a proper and humane manner. Now, if you don't believe in in religion, then obviously, it is possible for you to derive that the whole process is so vulgar, and so evil. So I'm going to become a vegetarian, and I can see where they're coming from hamdulillah we don't need to go down that route. We are a religion that believes in the permissibility of eating meat. Now, if you're going to believe that you're going to if you believe that eating meat is permissible, then

there's going to be a messy procedure, there's going to be a bloody procedure, there is no easy way around it, you're going to have to slaughter the animal one way or the other. And so the criminalization or the demonization of the Muslim slaughtering is the height of hypocrisy when they themselves are doing similar things. The only difference, as we said, is that of the stunning and if you read so many newspaper reports and articles, oh, they take a sharp knife and they cut the jugular vein, okay, how do you kill the animal even after it is slaughtered? What do you do, you also take a sharp knife and you cut it, the only difference is a percentage of your animals are

dead, whereas for us there is no percentage that is dead. Now, from a technical standpoint, this is my third point here. From a technical standpoint, purely from shutter a perspective, the stunning of an animal is mcru. It is not in and of itself going to make the animal how long it is mcru, it is discouraged, we should not do this. However, if this ban is taking place, which appears the bill has already been passed, and within a month, and this is why the timing is so suspect, because it is coinciding with the month of Ramadan. So again, you know, it's a very sinister motivation and people and agenda and timing, everything checks, the boxes really have a deep seated hatred of our faith.

And that's something that we seek Allah's refuge and protection. But if or when this ban goes into effect, just to be technical here, even if it is required to stun the animal, as long as the animal is alive, when it is slaughtered, it will be highlighted from an Islamic perspective. Therefore, if this law will be enforced, then I asked the Muslim butcher, how slaughterhouses the abbatoirs that are there to monitor and make sure that the animal is still alive, the heart is beating, as long as the animal is alive, when the the juggler is cut, then the animal will be considered halaal. So you say Bismillah, you use a sharp instrument, and you cut the juggler while the animal is alive, and

that will be constituted a valid slaughter. Now the problem again comes the percentage of death. And that's really why that's really why we do not like these types of, of shocking of the animals because this electrocution, it does cause some of the animals to die. And that is something that is very problematic for us. Now, we also have to point out that here are the the the, you know, the the government is telling us that this is inhumane, and they're telling us that it is something that is going to cause pain to the animal. And you know, this is chronic methodology, that sometimes this is a deep point here. Sometimes it is allowed to attack the messenger of the you know, the messenger,

of course, I don't mean stuff about the Prophet, the messenger means the person coming to with a, you know, with some idea, you can also attack the credibility of the person, sometimes you can do this right, depending on the context, and sometimes you should concentrate only on the arguments of the person that is bringing forth. Now, in this case, we have full authority to point out the sheer hypocrisy of the French people for claiming that they want to preserve human sorry, animal rights, not human rights, animal rights, and to prevent pain, when one of the main exports of one of the most inhumane animal products in the world is France itself. Now, perhaps many of you watching this

are not aware. So I apologize, I'm going to have to be a little bit graphic. But this is something that needs to be done to point out the double standards and the hypocrisy of this group that is saying that our procedure is inhumane and painful, even as they themselves are known across the world for one particular animal product. That is the height of inhumanity, so much so that there have been decreased from animal organizations across the globe, from PETA and from even United Nations councils or whatnot to attempt to ban this item. What item is this? It is something that I'm assuming many of us are not aware of. It is called foie gras foie gras. It's a French term that

means fatty liver now

Is foie gras. foie gras is the liver of a duck. Now what is wrong with eating the liver of a duck? Well, nothing you can eat the liver of a duck, the duck is head out. If you slaughter it, you can eat the liver of the duck. But you see, this particular liver that is marketed and that is sold in France is the number one export the entire globe By the way, and more than around 20 tons of the product. Now, I cannot even imagine how many hundreds of 1000s of birds that must be 20 tonnes of the product, the number one exporter in the globe of this product is France. Now how do you produce this, this product, you tie a duck down, you put it put them in a cage, and then you force feed the

duck, you shove a pipe or with a villa down its neck all the way to its stomach. So it is literally just a pipe that is coming all the way out. And then you pump two to three pounds of food every single day for many, many, many weeks, you pump food in continuously two and a half pounds of grain and fat. You just keep on pumping it in. And in the process the animal is going to become bloated and bloated and bloated. The animal will not be able to walk it is stuck in is one place. It is however Billa in its own excrement for weeks on end, and you just keep on force feeding, what's going to happen the organs will collapse. And the liver will basically burst internally it's going

to become 10 times its normal size. And so right when the animal is at the verge of death, then you will slaughter it. The liver will be super, you know soft and and gorged and that is called foie gras. This, this procedure is so inhumane that it has been banned in several European countries in Austria, in the Czech Republic in Denmark, in Finland, in Germany, in Italy, in Norway, Poland. Even in the United Kingdom, you cannot buy this product because of the inhumanity that is done on this particular product. And yet France is by far and large, the number one producer and exporter because it is a French cuisine item of foie gras. And as I said more than 20,000 tonnes just imagine that

20,000 tonnes of foie gras is sold to other countries around the globe. And this needs to be said here. So now they're going to come and tell us that our procedures are inhumane when this is the National delicacy of this land. And that's why we cannot help but say There seems to be a clear double standards. This is reeking of your traditional French hypocrisy. And this needs to be said, nonetheless, when all is said and done, what can we do? And with this, I conclude this question, What can be done? Well, the specifics of what you need to do, I can't answer you I'm sitting in America, I do not know the ins and outs of what is the best procedure, how to mobilize the

community, what types of non violent pressure because we must use non violent pressure, we must use non violent pressure protests, letters, to politicians letters to the editor, economic pressure on specific, you know, politicians or whatever there are spreading this type of hate. Muslims need to mobilize I have said this so many times that, given the circumstances we're living in, you know, the Muslim communities cannot afford to be a political and just living in their houses and not getting involved. This is their own system. And France has the highest concentration of Muslims in the Western world. Paris, I have been told is 20% 15 to 20%. Muslim background, how can you let these

politicians go unchallenged? When 1/5 of your city, you know, is of a particular heritage and background and you're all wanting to eat? Or at least you're wanting to have the permissibility of halal meat? How can you just sit and do nothing, mobilize, gather together, put pressure on politicians that are anti muslim, and support politicians that are going to give you your rights that are guaranteed by the law and also form alliances with other groups, in particular, the Jewish communities as well. And this is something that again, the irony of ironies, we might disagree with many of the people of the Jewish background because of the political situation in Israel and

Palestine. And that's a valid disagreement. But when it comes to rituals, and when it comes to many of the practices, we are very similar, and there's much to be gained by cooperating with them against those that hate the both of us because statistics have shown over and over again, that those that are Islamophobic are also anti symmetric. They lump the two of us together. And laws typically affect both of our communities. So if they were to enforce this, then in reality, it will also affect the Jewish community and that is why it is

is so important that we do form alliances for these political causes. And we agree to disagree, we definitely do not, you know, condone what is going on in Palestine and whatnot. But this is a separate issue. And for the greater good of both of the communities, we need to work together, because in some states and lands in Europe, they have tried to ban, you know, a children's circumcision or boy circumcision to try to ban you know, hell out and kosher. And so we are all on the same side when it comes to these types of practices. And the Sharia allows us as our profitsystem did form alliances and loyalties, with people of mcha who were not upon our faith, but

they were standing for truth and justice. They were standing for the freedoms of the Muslims to worship. And I've given many talks on this in my Syrah, you know, multivitamin ID herbal body, others, the Muslims had no problem forming alliances with them, and taking their help and getting their advice and helping them back indirectly as well as their professors. Some explicitly praised multiroom and other, you know, instances in the Sierra that I have spoken about. So the bottom line is that I cannot tell you specifically what to do, I don't know, you know, the realities of your particular country, but generically speaking, your community leaders and your activists, you know,

should ally themselves with your forward thinking or an AMA and then see what can be done as a community to try to stop this, this ban taking into effect and worst case scenario, as I said, that in the meantime, you can implement these laws and the meat will still be valid, as long as you make sure that the animal is alive when the slaughter takes place. And Allah subhana wa tada knows best.

He can't