A lot of us have seen the word “halal” on food marks and restaurant establishments, but not all of us know what it actually means. Our Muslim friends depend their choice on this word because it indicates what is acceptable for them to purchase or eat. For a country that has inhabitants with mixed religious affiliations, that word is just as significant.
Muslims in Islamic countries don’t have problems eating in halal restaurants and picking up halal products as most likely than not, they are halal-certified. But for those who are in areas that have various religious groups, the term is not as rampant as they would like. Good thing that more establishments are now becoming conscious of their customer’s orientations.
The word halal simply means legal, which implies that if an eating establishment says they are halal-certified or a food item has this word on its tag, the preparation of their items is in accordance with the Islamic law. Muslims, therefore, are allowed to use or consume the product.
So what is permitted in Islamic law? There are a number of guidelines, but let’s begin with how a meat should be prepared. An animal should be butchered by cutting its windpipe and gullet quickly. This method of ritual slaughter is believed to kill instantaneously and painlessly.
And because there are halal or permitted items, there are also haraam or prohibited products. To start with, Muslims are not allowed to consume pork and consume alcohol. So a product or a restaurant must not add those ingredients to their menu. There should also be no contamination of the items, meaning, if a utensil has been used to prepare a pork meal, it should not be used anymore to prepare a halal-approved item.
Other haraam items include blood, carnivores or birds of prey, animals butchered in the name of any other god but Allah or have been sacrificed to another god, and corpse of an animal.
There are Muslim groups who state food products as halal and give halal certification to eateries. Products that have halal authentication are the ingredients used by halal restaurants to make sure that they observe the Islamic dietary law carefully.
Today, more and more restaurants not run by Muslims still make great effort to abide Islamic dietary laws. Those food establishments show that they value and respect all their clients, regardless of their religious orientations.
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