Editorial: Animal Slaughter – Biblical or Quranic?

 Muslims have just completed celebrating the festival of sacrifice known as Eid Ul Adha a few weeks ago.

 Mentioned 358 times in the Bible and 26 times in the Quran, Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that the Patriarch of these three monotheistic religions, Prophet Ebrahim or Abraham (peace be upon him) was commanded to sacrifice his son, Ismail according to Muslims and Isaac according to others.

In the time of the Prophet Musa or Moses (Peace be upon him), animals were sacrificed to various deities until the command to do this only in the name of Almighty was revealed.  The Prophet Isa or Jesus (Peace Be upon Him) endorsed this when he said “Think not that I come to destroy the law or the Prophets.  I have not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Mathew 5:17)

 Few centuries later the pagan Arabs of the time also sacrificed animals to their several hundred gods and idols until Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) conveyed the divine command that only Almighty Allah’s name be pronounced during slaughter.

 The prescribed method of slaughter in both scriptures are similar in that the knife has to be sharp to minimise pain, the name of the Almighty God must be pronounced and the animal must be completely bled.  The Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him) said that "Allah calls for mercy in everything", and has therefore instructed us to be merciful when we kill and to sharpen our blades and thus lessen the pain of the animal being slaughtered.

 The swift cut that involves the windpipe (trachea), gullet (oesophagus), carotid artery and jugular vein, without severing the spinal cord results in the rapid gush of blood draining.  This purifies the meat by

Back