Birmingham mosques come out against halal machine slaughtering
Mosques in Birmingham have called for consumers and processors to be made more of aware of machine slaughtering used in halal meat production.
Umbrella organisation the Birmingham Council of Mosques has released an open letter signed by Dr N Naseem on 3 March, which said: “Our collective view is that we do not accept machine slaughter as a halal (lawful) method to produce halal meat.”
Ruksana Shain, representing the Birmingham Council of Mosques, added that the letter was a way of making a stance to the Muslim Community to make them aware of machine slaughtering in halal and also communicating this to the meat industry and the Food Standards Agency.
“We are trying to help the community and get the information out,” said Shain, adding the Council was looking to lobby the government over the issue to get machine slaughtering off the halal plate.
Shain added that many halal certification bodies that accept machine slaughter were not wholly representative of the Muslim Community and were self-certificating.
Eblex Halal Steering Group member Naved Syed said: “These are the views the Malaysian Standard MS 1500 has raised that removes machine slaughter from halal killing.”
Re: “Council was looking to lobby the government over the issue to get machine slaughtering off the halal plate” – why should the Government be lobbied for this? Eat meat less often (don’t degrade Prophet’s PBUH special dish to staple food; Prophet’s staple food was mainly vegetarian & is healthier too) to afford better quality & more halal (& tayyeb – wholesome). Encourage food debate in mosques through khutbas etc. In peace, Rianne