Allah says in the fifth chapter of Qur`an Al-Maida 5:3 that
Forbidden unto you is the dead (carrion) and, blood and flesh of swine and,
what hath been slaughtered in the name of any other than that of Allah, and
the strangled, and beaten to death, and killed by a fall and gored to death
by a horn, and that which the wild beasts ate, except that which ye slaughter
(in accordance with the prescribed law)
Zibah is the method or the act of slaughter also known as zibah-al-Ikhtiyaariy
by which an animal or a bird is slaughtered by a Muslim by saying shahada or
tasmiya, Bismillah Allahu Akbar. If the slaughter is not done by zibah method,
any meat or derivatives from such carcasses cannot be deemed to be halal or
permissible for Muslims to consume. Requirements for zibah are:
- The animal or bird should be alive and healthy at the time of slaughter.
- Animal skin or fur, and bird feathers must be clean prior to slaughter and
be free from faeces, mud or other unhygienic substances
- Stunning is not used to kill the animal or the bird
- A licensed Muslim slaughterer should slaughter by pronouncing shahada or
tasmiya (when the knife is put on the throat of the bird of animal being slaughtered) “Bismillah
Allahu Akbar”;
- All the flowing blood should be drained out from the carcass by natural
convulsion
- Whence slaughtering is carried out in a mechanised plant, say for, poultry
slaughtering, because of expediency of machinery and fixed blade operation,
licensed Muslim slaughterman/men should be present to do the rendition of shahada.
Number of slaughtermen depends on the speed of the machine/line. Generally
it is accepted that a healthy young male can recite shahada approximately fifteen
hundred times per hour. It is therefore, suggested that we have 2-3 Muslim
slaughtermen at the slaughtering station/s of medium abattoirs. These slaughtermen
would also slaughter with full recitation of shahada any bird/animal that are
missed by the machine.
No dorsal cut is allowed in slaughterhouses approved by Halal Food Authority.
Dorsal cut would make poultry proscribe for Muslim consumption.
©Halal Food Authority 2006
