Meaning of halal

[Spencer]

Hey guys, this is kind of important,pls. give me an answer:
What does “halal” mean? (food)
Thanks
Spencer

[Spencer]

What kind of food “halal meat” contais, is what I’d like to know

[Jamie_K]

It is meat prepared according to Muslim law. It’s something like the Muslim equivalent of kosher.

[Conchita]

The term ‘halal’ is for Muslims what ‘kosher’ is to Jews.

Halal meat comes from animals that have been slaughtered according to Islamic rites.

Halaal (حلال, halāl, halal) is an Islamic Arabic term meaning “permissible”. In English it is most frequently used to refer to food that is permissible according to Islamic law. In Arabic it refers to anything that is permissible under Islam.

[Spencer]

Thanks Jamie, but I’d like to know what it contains,because some guests would like to have halal dishes and the chef doesn’t know what to do.
You see the problem we got here?

[Conchita]

Oops! Jamie has beaten me to it again!

[Conchita]

@spencer

Thanks Jamie, but I’d like to know what it contains,because some guests would like to have halal dishes and the chef doesn’t know what to do.
You see the problem we got here?

As far as I know, it’s only the process of slaughtering that is special. When preparing food, any ingredients can be added to the meat, as far as it’s not pork or rabbit meat.

[Jamie_K]

Here are the stipulations I have found on the Internet:

The first is that the animal is itself is Halal. That means no pork, for instance.

The second, is that the food the animal consumes does not contain any blood or meat. Sakr explains that the animal has to be herbivorous to be Halal, and adds that an animal becomes Haram if it consumes blood and /or meat.

The third condition Sakr lists for an animal to be Halal is that it should not be given any hormones.

I think they probably also have the same stipulation that the Jews do, in the sense that the animal can’t have died a natural death.

Above all, though, the meat can’t be pork. Don’t even use pork lard as cooking oil. Nothing from pork.

In many mixed neighborhoods in the US, Jews and Muslims treat the kosher stores and halal stores as interchangeable, and shop at one or the other, even though I don’t think the laws are 100% the same.

[Conchita]

Also take a look at this:

Halal: The ‘lawful’ food

By Dexter C. Osorio

The following products are definitely Halal: Milk (from cows, sheep, camels and goats); honey; fish; plants, which are not intoxicants; fresh or naturally frozen vegetables; fresh or dried fruits; legumes and nuts like peanuts, cashew nuts, hazel nuts, walnuts, etc.; and grains such as wheat, rice, rye, barley, oat, etc.

The following foods, on the other hand, are definitely Haram: Pork; blood; carnivorous animals; almost all reptiles and insects; the bodies of dead animals; Halal animals, which are not slaughtered according to the Islamic Law; and wine, ethyl alcohol, and spirits.

For devout Muslims, however, even cows, chickens, ducks and other Halal animals can be off-limits if they are not also Zabihah (slaughtered according to Islamic Rites). In order to be Zabihan (1) the animal must be slaughtered by a Muslim, (2) the animal should be put down on the ground or held if it is small, (3) its throat should be slit with a very sharp knife to make sure that the three main blood vessels are cut, and (4) while cutting the throat of the animal without severing it, the person must pronounce the name of Allah or recite a blessing which contains the name of Allah, such as “Bismillah Allah-u-Akbar.”

Eating Halal is not as simple as it seems. Staying away from pork is one thing, for example, but how about gelatin, emulsifiers, and artificial food flavorings? Are they still Halal? This is where Halal certification comes in, making it easier for devout Muslims to be sure that they are not consuming Haram food without knowing it. This is the reason why even seemingly innocent foods such as potato chips and chewing gum sometimes bear the “Halal” certification.

For devout Muslims who want to eat out without having to ask for the ingredients of each item on the menu, Halal restaurants are now available through­out Metro Manila, such as Millennium Halal Cuisine at various malls such as Star Mall EDSA, Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall, Isetann Manila and the SM Su­permalls.

Millen­nium Ha­lal Cui­sine is owned and ope­rated by Tasty Fresh Halal Foods Co., which manufactures and supplies a line of Halal-certified foods both here and abroad. Owned by Datu Rasul Domado, the company uses only Halal fresh meat slaughtered in Islamic rites and halal-certified condiments and ingredients in making its products.

For additional information, check out: The Islamic Halal food Monitor of Canada (I.H.F.M. Canada) website (eat-halal.com), or The Islamic Food and Nut­rition Council of America (Ifanca) website (ifanca.org). Shopping for Halal

Here are some tips from halal.com to help you shop for “lawful” food

• Make sure that the products you buy have ingredients on their labels. If a product doesn’t have a label with ingredients, don’t buy it.

• Always check the ingredients. You might want to print and keep a list of ingredients to avoid (check out eat-halal.com for a list of Halal ingredients). If one of these ingredients is found in a product, don’t buy it.

• Don’t buy any meat products from the supermarket. Try to buy all your meat from a Halal meat store.

• If you get a Halal/Haram list, make sure it is recent. There are many lists in circulation, which are outdated and give out incorrect information.

• Be especially cautious in buying the following products: cheese, cheese flavor chips, cakes, cookies, French fries, candies, soups (may contain meat), sauce (may contain meat), margarine, yogurt, etc.

[Jamie_K]

@spencer

You see the problem we got here?

The problem is that someone who is Muslim travels to a non-Muslim country and expects non-Muslims to be familiar with Muslim dietary law. Did they volunteer an explanation, or did they just expect Hungarians to know how to comply with Muslim law?

Many Jews who insist on kosher food, or Muslims who insist on halal food, will be kind enough to explain it to their hosts. Some of them even carry their own food around when they go to places where it will be hard to get.

[Spencer]

There You go!
Actually I wasn’t worried about this nor the chef seems to be because of the same reason that You’ve mentioned just now.

[Spencer]

It might be interesting that hal?l in my language means death.
Spencer
(thanks for all the answers)

[Samreen]

although the original post is about 4 years old and Spencer must have had his party by now. I was just feeling an urge to clarify a couple of stuff here.

First of, as answered by many, Halal for Muslims is KIND OF equivalent to kosher for Jews, which ofcourse means NO PORK, but it also means NO ALCOHOL added to the product, as alcohol is a NON-HALAL beverage for Muslims. I have seen kosher wines on the other hand and also the products that carry alcohol but are labeled as kosher. So i ASSUME that alcohol, when kosher, is not forbidden for Jews BUT it is, no matter what kind, strictly forbidden for Muslims.

For Muslims what truly equivalent to kosher is ZABIHAH, which as mentioned by one of the poster is:

"For devout Muslims, however, even cows, chickens, ducks and other Halal animals can be off-limits if they are not also Zabihah (slaughtered according to Islamic Rites). In order to be Zabihan (1) the animal must be slaughtered by a Muslim, (2) the animal should be put down on the ground or held if it is small, (3) its throat should be slit with a very sharp knife to make sure that the three main blood vessels are cut, and (4) while cutting the throat of the animal without severing it, the person must pronounce the name of Allah or recite a blessing which contains the name of Allah, such as “Bismillah Allah-u-Akbar.”

Now both Jews and Muslim follow the above procedure and pronounce the name of Allah SWT (God) to make the meat kosher or zabihah, respectively, and this is how both kosher and zabihah become equivalent. A kosher alcoholic beverage again can never be halal or allowed for Muslims, since alcohol itself isn’t regarded as halal by Muslims.

SECONDLY, i don’t think any Muslim expects you to magically know by yourself Muslims Dietry laws or force you to arrange halal/zabihah food for them at your parties. Many Muslims go to non Muslims parties and IN MOST CASES do one of the following three things:

• They don’t eat anything at all, since they aren’t sure about the source of the food, even if it is no-pork, non-meat kind of stuff. They will eat raw fruits and veggies though, if available.
• They do eat only the stuff that are non-meat and they think is halal/zabihah to the best of their knowledge: Fries from BK, for example. (although the Mulsim-type mentioned above will also try to know the source of lard, oil, and pan/fryer used to make the fries)
• They do eat anything that is not pork. Since they believe whatever Halal, is Halal and they don’t really seem to worry much about the zabihah-ness of the food.

So you see it wasn’t that difficult, either they don’t eat, or they do eat whatever they think is halal/zabihah, or they do eat whatever you have there for your other guests. None of them urge you to arrange something special for them. Now if you wanted to be a courteous and nice host for your guests and wanted all of your guests feel comfortable at the party and wanted to go to an extra length by arranging halal food for your Muslim guests, then instead of coming here and portraying the whole situation as some kind of ‘problem’, you could simply have asked your guest what they meant by halal, since it was something new and unknown to you, i believe they would have been more than happy to explain it to you.