----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 6:47 AM
Subject: The Wisdom of Islamic Sacrifice
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