When I talk about food on here, you'll see a word halal used a lot.
Most people associate it with meat, seeing all the halal butchers and little 'halal' stickers on takeaways. The word halal actually means 'permissible' in Arabic, and covers much more than just the meat that comes from religious slaughter.
The opposite of halal is a word haram, meaning 'forbidden', and the haram foods have been specifically mentioned in the Quran:
"O you who have believed, eat from the good things which We have provided for you and be grateful to Allah if it is [indeed] Him that you worship.
He has only forbidden to you dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah . But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], there is no sin upon him. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful." (2:172-173)
To sum up, the products that are strictly forbidden are:
- pork
- blood
- carrion (dead, rotting flesh)
- alcohol
- meat of animals that have been strangled, beaten to death or savaged by a beast of prey
- meat of animals killed in the name of anyone different than Allah
When covering halal food options on the blog, I won't just be talking about the meat then - I'll be showcasing anything that's free from the haram ingredients. That might be alcohol-free drinks, vegetarian and vegan sweets, or anything else that I want to recommend that's suitable for Muslim diet.
