Slaughtering Beasts before
Death Guarantees Purification of Flesh and Being free from
microbes and bacterium
In Quran, Allah says :
{ Forbidden unto
you (for food) are carrion and blood and swine flesh, and that
which hath been dedicated unto any other than Allah, and the
strangled, and the dead through beating, and the dead through
falling from a height, and that which hath been killed by (the
going of) horns, and the devoured of wild beasts, saving that
which ye make lawful (by the death stroke), and that which hath
been immolated unto idols. And (forbidden is it) that ye swear
by the divining arrows. This is an abomination. This day are
those who disbelieve in despair of (ever harming) your
religion; so fear them not, fear Me! This day have I perfected
your religion for you and completed My favor unto you, and have
chosen for you as religion AL-ISLAM .... } [Quran, 5:3]
This case of Islamic sacrifice by
slaughtering - legitimate - beasts before eating is one of the
cases used against Islam based on unawareness of The Divine
orders which are perfect and complete. Many debates with
Islamic, minor, communities in Britain, USA, France, and
other western countries regarding this case, specially
societies caring for animals which condemns this rite and tries
to show the sheep, after being slaughtered, while they are
kicking and twisting in pain, and thus accusing Muslims by
savagery and wildness. This position, in addition to being a
face of spite and distortion, is considered a duplicated
unawareness of what has been discovered and proven through the
modern science.
In what follows we try to show the
wisdom behind this Islamic way of slaughtering and why the
other kinds, mentioned in the holy verse above, are forbidden,
in the light of the modern science :-
The Carrion and
Blood :-
The carrion is a store of microbes
and severe diseases. Consider if we put one gram of blood and
one gram of flesh in an open place, and then, after 3 or 4
hours, we wanted to eat them ... will this cause any harm?
YES ... a severe harm. For the
blood, the disease causing microbes are likely to be
transferred to it through the knife used for slaughtering, or
through the surrounding air, or maybe from any close source.
When a microbe gets into blood it's geometrically multiplied
every 30 minutes and becomes 2 microbes. Assume that 1000
microbes got into that gram of blood, then after 30 minutes
they become 2000, and after an hour they become 4000, and after
one hour and half they become 8000, .... . Thus after the 3
hours the number of microbes increase to become 64000 microbes
in that gram of blood. It's well known that blood already
contains a huge amount of microbes, even after death it becomes
much harmful if drunk or stored then drunk.
--And what about the piece of
flesh?
Regarding the piece of flesh,
microbes start by attacking the outer surface by destroying the
hard layer which microbes can't penetrate, then a great amount
of them dies because of shortage of nurture and incapability of
reproduction. When the cook tends to cook this piece, he first
washes it from outside, thus an amount of microbes is removed,
and then by cooking an additional amount is killed.
The Swine Flesh
:-
A so-called microbe, Yarsine,
wasn't found except in the swine flesh, and it lives in a very
low temperature around -40C. Many Europeans are infected by
this microbe, and it's the responsible for many of backbone and
joints diseases. Research proved the existence of this microbe
in water and many sorts of food, but when human eats them it
isn't as harm as those in the swine's mouth which is considered
a suitable environment for it to grow.
Although swine is treated by
penicillin and many antibiotics, it carries a lot of bacterium,
and day after another science exposes a new disease caused by
eating swine flesh. Some statistics showed a new infection by
tapeworm in Denmark, and it's known that the life cycle of
tapeworm takes place only in man or swine !!
The Strangled :-
Is there any harm caused by eating
the flesh of a strangled beast?
A relation was recently discovered
between the human health and the diseases by which the
strangled beast was infected. The wall of the large intestine
acts as a barrier preventing passage of microbes from inside
the large intestine - where excrements exist - to the beast
body and blood as long as it's alive. When the beast is
strangled it slowly dies. This slow death is dangerous because
the resistance of the wall of the large intestine is gradually
lost causing the harmful microbes to pass to blood and flesh,
and through blood circulation these microbes are further
transferred to all parts of the beast, which haven't died yet.
Moreover, microbes get through the blood vessels to flesh
because of low resistance of those vessels membranes .. The
beast thus becomes a store of harmful microbes after death.
The Dead through
Beating :-
Is there resemblance between death
by strangling and beating?
Yes .. the beast which dies through
beating also suffers slow death exactly the same as the
strangled, and the same scenario happens here. In addition :
beating causes disruption of vessels and cells in the position
of beating, so a mixture between blood components and cells
components occurs, and probably causes interaction of toxic
materials. That's why a tumor appears at the beating position.
It's caused by these toxic chemical interactions, besides the
slough skin .. Thus the beast dead through beating has become a
store of harmful microbes dangerous for human health.
The Dead through
Falling from a Height :-
The beast may die differently by
falling from a height .. then what about its flesh?
The beast which dies in that way is
just like which dies through beating, because in the position
of falling the disruption occurs and it slowly dies. Even if it
died just after falling, the microbes rapidly attack its body
and that's why rottenness appears soon on its carrion, as a
sign of the dangerous microbes inside it.
The killed by
horns :-
Some beasts die by each other's
horns, is there any danger caused by eating the flesh of them?
Dieing like that is similar to
death through beating, but even more dangerous. Often, when a
beast butts by its horns it hits abdomen position, specially in
the intestine, so the dirty horn gets into the blood in the
intestine of the other beast, and this polluted blood
circulates in its body causing death. It's a true danger to eat
such flesh.
The Devoured of
Wild Beasts :-
When a wild beast ravens some
beast, then what about eating its flesh?
It's well known that the claws of a
wild beast are filled with microbes, and when it sticks them
into the other's body the microbes moves through its blood,
thus it slowly dies and becomes a store of harmful microbes.
Saving that
which Ye Make Lawful [The Wisdom of Islamic Sacrifice] :-
What if a beast was exposed to any
of the above methods, but it remained alive till we slaughtered
it before it dies?
Thus we have extracted the main
source of transferring microbes, that's blood, and they can't
go further to other organs.
When a beast is slaughtered before
death then its body gets rid of this substance which spreads
microbes inside it, because blood is the important biological
liquid in the body of a living being, and which can resist
millions of parasites through white corpuscles and antibodies
as long as the living being is still alive in its natural
temperature. But when it dies and blood stops circulation,
microbes faces no resistance, and in this case the best way is
to completely pour out that blood from the body as soon as
possible.
Mercy for
Animals in Islam :-
When we slaughter a beast and cut
its vessels, does it feel pain?
The answer is simple : try to press
any person in the same position of slaughtering, he will fall
faint in moments. The centers of pain sensing become
inoperative if the blood pumping stopped for 3 minutes only,
because they need Oxygen continuously.
How can we say that the beast
doesn't feel any pain while we find it kicking and twisting in
pain?
This is because the nervous system
is still working and it just lost its awareness. Since the neck
wasn't broken yet, then the nervous system isn't invaded and so
still working. In the Islamic way of sacrifice the nervous
system tends to sending signals from brain to heart requesting
blood because it has depletion of it, and signals to muscles to
send blood to heart, and signals to whole body to help brain by
sending blood.
Immediately, the muscles shrink and
a strong movement happens in the guts and interior and exterior
muscles, pressing strongly to pump all of the blood to heart,
which in turn beats rapidly to be full of blood, and then sends
it to the brain. However, on the way, blood gets out of the
body through the cut vessels and don't reach brain. So, we see
the beast twisting and bleeding until its body becomes empty of
blood .. thus it gets rid of the main environment of microbes
growth.
Thus the slaughtered beast dies in
3 seconds only if it's slaughtered in the right way, and what
we see as kicking, twisting, spasm and the like are just
indications of the still alive nervous system, while the
slaughtered beast doesn't feel any pain.
Conclusion :-
All of these medical secrets and
healthy insights were mentioned in The Holy Quran .. {Falsehood
cannot come at it from before it or behind it. (it is) a
revelation from the Wise, the Owner of praise} [Quran, 41:42].
It guides us to every benefit and warns us from every evil.
Source : Al-Eijaz
Magazine (Scientific Miracles), vol. 3&4.
The magazine is
published by "The Committee on Scientific Miracles in Quran and
Sunnah", Mecca, KSA.
For Foreign
receivers : This essay is translated from Arabic. Please
if you found any error in expressions or vocabulary send
corrections to
Rania@islamway.net