The husband and I recently made the switch to eating zabiha slaughtered meat only. On occasion, fast food commercials will tug at my heart strings when I think that I’ll never again have a chicken breast from KFC or a double cheeseburger from Burger King (at least here in the US). But, for the most part, I’m over it. We’re eating more vegetarian food at home, and the zabiha meat we do eat is often raised in a more humane manner than what we used to get from the local Rainbow.
Today however, I had one of those horrible realizations. When I was in junior high, our foreign language department packed us all on buses and took us on a four hour bus trip up to the Twin Cities to attend the Festival of Nations. Now that I live up here, it’s something the husband and I love to do every year. My favorite part? The food. Ah, but alas, much of it isn’t zabiha. Heart drops, dark pit forms in the stomach, nooooooooooooo! Maybe the food from some countries (egypt, pakistan, somali?) will be, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Ah well, at least pisan goran is vegetarian.
4 responses so far ↓
malik // May 3, 2008 at 1:36 am
sister you are not alone, trust me. im a revert too and it seems that i had to give up everything. i used to love the spicy chicken at mcdonalds and would get it every other day & had to give that up! i had to give up music which i used to listen to at least 3 hours a day! and then watching tv, it was virtually impossible with all the music. so now i dont watch any tv (and i used to watch 6 shows a week) and i had to stop working at the animal shelter which i used to love so dearly because there were dogs. and then give up my female friends because they were famales. add to that the fact that i can not marry because of the hard test that Allah(swt) has given me! i know it is very hard sister, and trust me i am on the same boat right now. it is the hardest thing ive ever had to do in my life. it feels like EVRYTHING i do is a sin! but just have trust in Allah(swt) and remember the reward in the hereafter. and also i have heard some scholars that it is permissable to eat food that you are not sure about if it is halal or not, if you know that christians and jews made it. but im not sure if this is the ijma. wa salaam
Jamerican Muslimah // May 4, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Ahh…you’ve joined us now. :)
Aaminah // May 4, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Asalaamu alaikum.
You have a few different masjids there right? We have an annual Festival of the Arts locally and one of the biggest features is the food from around the world. But one or two of our local masjids always have a booth, so there’s always at least one thing that’s halal. :) Plus one of the Buddhist temples has vegetarian… and I get a piece of fry bread from the Native American Community Svcs booth. :)
Br. Malik - subhanAllah you’ve had to give up a lot. I think I miss going outside in short sleeves the most, even more than KFC :) It’s tough but inshaAllah there’s a reward at the end for this.
JM - yeah, the husband and I did some research into slaughter house practices and just couldn’t rationalize it being halal, even if there are scholars that say it’s ok.
Aaminah - ah, fry bread! I actually only brought $7 (diet control) and spent it on potatoes from nepal and my banana springroll when I passed by the native american booth and smacked myself for not buying fry bread.
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