The Halal Slaughter Controversy: Do Animal
Rights activists protect the sheep or the
Butcher?
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Islamic Halal slaughter has increasingly
come under attack from animal rights
activists telling tales of barbaric blood-
thirsty ritual slaughter. There are two
distinct issues: there is the vegetarian
agenda which wants to ban all
consumption of animal products, and
there is the animal rights lobby which
argues for a humane method of
slaughter.
Do animals have rights?
The vegetarian argument is that killing
animals for the benefit of humans is
cruel and an infringement of their
rights. They put both on the same level
without conceding any superiority to
humans over animals. This argument is
seriously flawed, because if animals had
rights comparable to those of humans,
they must also have equivalent duties. In
other words, we must be able to blame
them and punish them if they violate the
rights of others. It is absurd that it
should be considered a crime for
humans to kill a sheep, but natural for a
lion to do so. The problem stems from a
misconception of the role of human life
within the animal kingdom: a denial of
purposeful creation within a clearly
defined hierarchy degrades humans to
the level of any other creature. Yet even
then, the argument is illogical: Why
should plants, for example, be denied the
same protection from a violation of the
sanctity of their life?
Is Islamic slaughter cruel?
The question of how an animal should be
slaughtered to avoid cruelty is a
different one. It is true that when the
blood flows from the throat of an animal
it looks violent, but just because meat is
now bought neatly and hygienically
packaged on supermarket shelves does
not mean the animal didn’t have to die?
Non-Islamic slaughter methods dictate
that the animal should be rendered
unconscious before slaughter. This is
usually achieved by stunning or
electrocution. Is it less painful to shoot a
bolt into a sheep’s brain or to ring a
chicken’s neck than to slit its throat? To
watch the procedure does not objectively
tell us what the animal feels.
The scientific facts
A team at the university of Hannover in
Germany examined these claims through
the use of EEG and ECG records during
slaughter. Several electrodes were
surgically implanted at various points of
the skull of all the animals used in the
experiment and they were then allowed
to recover for several weeks. Some of the
animals were subsequently slaughtered
the halal way by making a swift, deep
incision with a sharp knife on the neck,
cutting the jugular veins and carotid
arteries of both sides together with the
trachea and esophagus but leaving the
spinal cord intact. The remainder were
stunned before slaughter using a captive
bolt pistol method as is customary in
Western slaughterhouses. The EEG and
ECG recordings allowed to monitor the
condition of the brain and heart
throughout.
The Halal method
With the halal method of slaughter, there
was not change in the EEG graph for the
first three seconds after the incision was
made, indicating that the animal did not
feel any pain from the cut itself. This is
not surprising. Often, if we cut ourselves
with a sharp implement, we do not
notice until some time later. The
following three seconds were
characterised by a condition of deep
sleep-like unconciousness brought about
by the draining of large quantities of
blood from the body. Thereafter the EEG
recorded a zero reading, indicating no
pain at all, yet at that time the heart was
still beating and the body convulsing
vigorously as a reflex reaction of the
spinal cord. It is this phase which is most
unpleasant to onlookers who are falsely
convinced that the animal suffers whilst
its brain does actually no longer record
any sensual messages.
The Western method
Using the Western method, the animals
were apparently unconscious after
stunning, and this method of dispatch
would appear to be much more peaceful
for the onlooker. However, the EEG
readings indicated severe pain
immediately after stunning. Whereas in
the first example, the animal ceases to
feel pain due to the brain starvation of
blood and oxygen – a brain death, to put
it in laymen’s terms – the second
example first causes a stoppage of the
heart whilst the animal still feels pain.
However, there are no unsightly
convulsions, which not only means that
there is more blood retention in the
meat, but also that this method lends
itself much more conveniently to the
efficiency demands of modern mass
slaughter procedures. It is so much
easier to dispatch an animal on the
conveyor belt, if it does not move.
Appearances can deceive
Not all is what it seems, then. Those who
want to outlaw Islamic slaughter,
arguing for a humane method of killing
animals for food, are actually more
concerned about the feelings of people
than those of the animals on whose
behalf they appear to speak. The
stunning method makes mass butchery
easier and looks more palatable for the
consumer who can deceive himself that
the animal did not feel any pain when
he goes to buy his cleanly wrapped
parcel of meat from the supermarket.
Islamic slaughter, on the other hand,
does not try to deny that meat
consumption means that animals have to
die, but is designed to ensure that their
loss of life is achieved with a minimum
amount of pain.
The holistic view
Islam is a balanced way of life. For
Muslims, the privilege of supplementing
their diet with animal protein implies a
duty to animal welfare, both during the
rearing of the animal and during the
slaughter. Modern Western farming and
slaughter, on the other hand, aims at the
mass consumer market and treats the
animal as a commodity. Just as battery
hens are easier for large-scale egg
production, Western slaughter methods
are easier for the meat industry, but
they do neither the animal nor the end
consumer any favours. The Islamic way
guarantees a healthier life for the animal
and a healthier meat for the consumer.
