How Halal Food Items And Restaurants Help Our Muslim Friends
Many of us have seen the term “halal,” but not many of us know what it stands for. Halal can be seen on food tags and restaurants. The term is important for our Muslim friends as it indicates what is allowed for them to consume by their Islamic dietary law. In a country with residents of different religions, the word halal is very important.
For Muslim-populated countries, seeing halal on food items and restaurants is no trouble at all since they are run by Muslims who follow Islamic rules. But for nations that have citizens exercising various religions, then halal is not that easy to come by. Luckily, more and more establishments are becoming conscious of their customers’ orientations.
The word halal simply means legal, which implies that if an eating establishment declares they are halal-certified or a food item has this word on its label, the preparation of their items is in accordance with the Islamic law. Muslims, therefore, are allowed to use or consume the product.
So what is permitted in Islamic law? There are a number of guidelines, but let’s begin with how a meat should be prepared. An animal should be butchered by cutting its windpipe and gullet rapidly. This method of ritual slaughter is believed to kill immediately and painlessly.
If halal means lawful, haraam is the reverse. Muslims are not allowed to take haraam items, such as alcohol and pork. A halal-certified establishment and a halal-approved food product should not include such ingredients. Also, they should be careful withhow they prepare the food, avoiding any contamination. If a spoon was already used for a meal with haraam ingredients, it should not be used any longer to prepare halal-approved food.
Other forbidden items include blood, carnivores or birds of prey, animals butchered in the name of any other god but Allah or have been sacrificed to another god, and corpse of an animal.
Halal-certified eateries should conform to the Islamic dietary laws. And because some products are hard to determine whether they are halal or not, there are Muslim groups who certify food products as halal for buyers. Those products with halal certification are used as ingredients by halal restaurants, just to make very sure that they are strictly following the laws.
Today, more and more eateries not run by Muslims still make great effort to follow Islamic dietary laws. Those eateries show that they honor and respect all their customers, regardless of their religious preferences.
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