REL108 MODULE 4
Pre-Islamic Arabia
-Largely a tribe centered culture; inequality was rampant -Political battles between tribes meant there was a great deal of war and life was hard. -Ritual worship sponsored by tribes for political power (Were multiple Gods and could win their political favor by sponsoring worship for them)
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO continued
-Revelations challenged existing power, social and religious norms. (They challenge the existing power and social structures at the time specifically tribal centered worship and the power of tribes and instead lifted up the idea that there is one god and that your true identity was in your relationship with that God and not loyalty/affinity toa tribe) -Alot of political warfare that comes out of Muhammad sharing this message because people start following him and said God and in response tribes start battling the early Muslim community. -As a result Muhammad becomes both a religious and political leader of the early Muslim community.
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
BASIC MUSLIM EVALUATIONS -FOOD IS GOOD AND THANK GOD FOR IT -DON'T TAKE MORE THAN YOU NEED, SHARE IT WITH OTHERS. -DON'T BURDEN YOURSELF WITH EXCESSIVE FOOD LAWS. -FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF THE PROPHET AND THE WORDS OF THE QURAN REGARDING FOOD LAWS.
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Before turning to Al-mā'idah, however, we should briefly consider food-related passages found in three other Medinan surahs. Through their reapplication of motifs found in Meccan texts, these surahs cast "People of the Book," especially Jews,as tantamount to idolaters. Sūrat al-baqarah ("The Cow"), much like Al-nanl, en-joins the consumption of "permitted and good" foodstuffs—which is to say, every-thing other than carrion, blood, pork, and food over which an entity other thanGod was invoked—as a sign of obedience to God (2.168-73). Reading this passage out of context, one could readily conclude that its message is identical to that of its Meccan counterparts: adherence to the Qur'an's limited food restrictions distinguishes believers from idolaters. Polemic in Al-baqarah, however, is consistently directed not against idolaters but rather against the People of the Book. The repetition of familiar anti-idolatry rhetoric in this context suggests that Jews and Christians too follow in Satan's footsteps, impute statements to God without knowledge and are unbelievers who prefer the teachings of their ancestors to those of God. The unbelief of Jews past and present is further detailed in Surat Al-NISA ("WOMEN"), which reiterates, "It was because of the wrongdoing of the Jews that We forbade them good foods which had been permitted to them."
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Believers, unlike idolaters, possess accurate knowledge of the divine will with respect to food but, as non-Jews, are not bound by the punitively rigorous laws which God imposed upon the Children of Israel. Most passages about dietary laws in surahs associated with the Medinan period (622-32), in contrast, emphasize the distinction between believers and Jews while rhetorically associating the latter with idolaters. Whereas Meccan surahs treat Jews separately from idolaters, Medinan surahs conflate these communities. We have already seen, however, that one Medinan verse, Qur'an 5.5, does not use dietary law as a means of distinguishing Us from Them. This verse instead employs the PERMISSION of Jewish and Christian meat as a means by which to articulate a fundamental similarity between those who accept the divine revelation that is the Qur'an and those who received earlier revelations. This chapter will examine Meccan and Medinan texts in turn.
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By positioning its own dietary regulations in contrast to those associated with idolaters and Jews, the Qur'an establishes proper food practices as divinely ordained golden mean between two undesirable extremes, the former being false and the latter excessively rigorous. Observance of Qur'anic dietary restrictions serves to affirm the monotheism of the believers and to distinguish them from idolaters, while consumption of foods prohibited under Jewish law distinguishes believers in the Prophet's revelation from their Jewish counterparts. Indeed, the Qur'an's insistence that believers ought to consume all "permissible and good" foodstuffs implies that behavior to the contrary constitutes either a denial of God's authentic revelation or a rejection of the leniency God has mercifully extended to the believers. Not only Qur'anic dietary laws themselves but also their accompanying rhetoric of pagan ignorance and Jewish transgression finds parallels in Christian literature. There is much within the Qur'an, of course, that is quite different from Christian beliefs and practices. The similarity in this case, I would suggest, stems from the fact that the Qur'an's Mecan surahs and early Christian authorities alike seek to carve out an intermediate space for their followers between the same two established communities. Meat related food restrictions and their accompanying rhetoric, wielded successfully by Christians, are deployed in the Qur'an for the same purpose.
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Consumption of good food distinguishes those who walk on the divinely ordained path from those who oppose them. In the midst of extended polemic against the people of the book, Surat AL-IMRAN (THE FAMILY OF IMRAN) declares that "All food was permitted to the children of Israel before the Torah was revealed, accepting what Israel [ie Jacob] prohibited for himself. Say: Bring the Torah and recite it if you are truthful! Whoever fabricates falsehood about God afterward, those are truly the wrongdoers. According to the Surah, the Jews falsely deny that the distinctive food restrictions found in the Torah constitute punishment for their sinfulness. Jews are now depicted not only as wrongdoers but also as fabricators of falsehood with respect to God. Idolaters are absent from these Medinan passages, but the attributes associated with those idolaters in Meccan surahs now apply to the Jews. We observed in chapter 8 that rhetoric of this nature serves to define the Jews as inimical to the monotheistic community that employs it, irrespective of the fact that Jews also lay claim to monotheism.
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Despite halal certification agencies, and thus certain degrees of consensus, varying interpretations provide inconsistent meanings for the terms halal and zabiha. Some writers use the term halal instead of zabiha to refer only to animals killed in accordance with Qur'anic laws on slaughter, excluding animals slaughtered by adherents of other Abrahamic religions, such as Jewish kosher meats. Thus the terms are sometimes, but not always, used interchangeably in reference to meat. Zabiha slaughter is halal or lawful, so combining terms can be somewhat redundant.In addition, the Muslim Consumer Group defines zabiha meat as halal animals hand-slaughtered by a Muslim, notably excluding the machine-slaughtered animals common in industrial-scale farming. Profound variations exist among meats labeled halal, including violations of Qur'anic laws regarding slaughter, elaborated in the following examples. In his 2010 book Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet, popular writer Ibrahim Abdul-Matin described research concerned with questionably halal meats produced in industrial factory farm-ing, including surprising certification practices. Mufti Shaykh Abdullah Nana discovered the problematic "drive-by" halal certification wherebya shaykh reads a blessing while he drives past a slaughterhouse, which is far from slaughtering by hand with the name of God on one's lips. In another case, Shaykh Abdullah found the same machine and blade used to kill pigs and halal animals, potentially rendering the halal- certified meat haram (not permissible) if the knife was not properly cleaned. 14 He concluded that half of American Muslims eat questionable meat even when they buy halal-certified meat.
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO But at the same time, there are some ways that the quran presents itself as different and separate from the jews communities.
Distinguishing Muslims and others. Two groups of individuals did Muslim food law distinguish Muslims? -IDOLATERS -Those who are called Idolaters who worship other Gods than Allah or multiple Gods. - Believers, unlike idolaters, possess accurate knowledge of the divine will with respect to food but, as non Jews are bound by the punitively rigorous laws which God imposed upon the Children of Israel. Jews who have extensive food laws. -In other words, Quranic food laws communicated "We are non Jewish monotheists." (Shouldn't overburden ourselves with food laws.)
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Efforts to refresh traditional and accepted notions of halal are com-plicated by the Qur'anic injunction against new declarations on permissibility, a problem that Taqwa faced. The Quran specifically prohibits new claims to define permissible or non-permissible things: So we eat of the good and lawful things God has provided for you and be thankful for His blessings. . . . Do not say falsely, "This is lawful and that is forbidden," inventing a lie about God: those who invent lies about God will not prosper—they may have a little enjoyment but painful punishment awaits them. (Qur'an 16:114, 116) All foods are halal unless specifically named in the Quran or in a reliably sourced hadith (narrative detailing actions and sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his close companions). Because of this injunction against erecting false laws, Islam does not, for example, encourage vegetarianism generally. Nevertheless, certain poets, historical figures, and some contemporary Muslims prefer a vegetarian diet. Similarly, TAQWA's work proved periodically controversial because it depended on alternative notions of food practice beyond more common interpretations of halal laws. Although Taqwa leaders found their project consistent with Islamic principles, they also differed in approach and interpretation from others in both the local Muslim community and beyond.
page 10 ESPOUSE: adopt or support (a cause, belief, or way of life). "he turned his back on the modernism he had espoused in his youth"
God warns that those who unbelieve after receiving such a clear sign—for instance, by ascribing divinity to Jesus himself—will be subject to unparalleled pun-ishment, while those who acknowledge the truth will be rewarded (5.109-20).15Sūrat al-mā'idah places the recipient of the Qur'an in the lineage of Moses and Jesus, prior messengers who received substantially the same revelation found in the Qur'an and who conveyed the same truth to their communities. The Qur'an thus confirms and supersedes prior scriptures while revealing the falsehood espoused by some Jews and Christians (vv. 15-19, 44-48). 16 The food-laden table, one might say, represents the truth that God has provided to all three scriptural communities.The presence of Jews and Christians around this metaphorical table, however, does not legitimate the deceitful truth claims of these outsiders, nor does it negate their hostility toward God's ultimate revelation. Much of Al-mā'idah, like the preceding surahs, is devoted to polemic against Jews and Christians, both as separate communities and collectively as "those who were given the Book" or "People of the Book." "Believers," God warns, "do not take the Jews and Christians as allies; they are only allies with one another. Whoever of you who takes them as allies is surely one of them; indeed, God does not guide the wrongdoing people. Jews are wont to mislead believers, accept false statements, devour unlawful gain, and tamper with God's revelations; Christians falsely assert that Christ is God or that God is a Trinity. Jews and Christians alike mock the religion of the believers, falsely claim to accept its beliefs, hasten toward sin, and ally themselves with unbelievers although Jews and idolaters are most hostile toward the believers than Christians are.
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Golden-mean rhetoric also plays a role in the portrayal of meat-related food re-strictions within SURAT AL-NAHL ("Bees"). Those who do not believe God's revelations,apparently a reference to idolaters (see 16.98-100), are the ones who fabricate false-hood (yaftarī al-kadhb) and who will ultimately suffer great punishment (16.104-5). Believers who turn to unbelief (kufr) will suffer grievously as well, excepting those who were compelled to abandon the community against their will; the latter can look forward to God's merciful forgiveness. EAT, THEN, THE PERMITTED AND GOOD FOODS GOD HAS PROVIDED YOU AND GIVE THANKS FOR GOD'S KINDNESS, if you truly worship Him. True adherence to God's will, the Qur'an declares, is manifest through the consumption of permissible foods - which is to say, everything but CARRION, BLOOD, PORK, AND THAT OVER WHICH A BEING OTHER THAN GOD HAS BEEN INVOKED - AND THE ACT OF GIVING THANKS TO GOD. The act of giving thanks sets believers apart from the unbelievers who deny God's grace, while the act of eating "permitted and good foods," sets them apart from those who "fabricate falsehoods" about God and who will suffer great punishment, namely idolater.
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HALAL AND ZABIHA: DEFINITIONS AND AMBIGUITIES In Islamic law, HALAL is a general LEGAL TERM meaning "lawful or permissible." Avoiding alcohol and pork are very basic interpretations of halal practice among diasporic Muslims. For authoritative explanation of foods and eating, religious leaders refer to passages from the Quran , including this one: People, eat what is good and lawful from the earth...God has only forbidden you carrion, blood, pig's meat, and animals over which any name other than God's has been invoked (Quran 2:168,173) The Quran defines halal foods and names an extreme case - starving to death- when breaking the law is allowed. (Qur'an 2:173, 5:3, 6:145, 16:115) In industrial food systems, Halal certification indicates food acceptability for Muslims. For meat to be considered halal, Quranic law requires that the animal be killed in a specific way: God must be invoked and, to avoid the prolonged suffering, a carotid artery and the trachea must be cut with a sharp knife. In this case there is a particular way of naming God that is invoked in animal slaughter, first stating intent (niyya) to begin the ritual act of slaughter, followed by naming God according to this formula: "In the Name of God, God is most Great," spoken in Arabic: "Bismillah, Allahu akbar'' An additional instruction involves turning the animal in the direction of Mecca before slaughter, which is required only in Shi'i contexts.
MODULE 4 ISLAM AND MUSLIM FOOD WAYS
HALAL are food that are permitted for Muslims to eat. -The fast during the month of Ramadan -Similarities and Distinctiveness
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Halal foods depend on on visibly discernible qualities but on consumer trust in purveyors accurately representing the conditions of food production, packaging, distribution, and sales. In this way, Halal certification somewhat parallels organic certification, marking otherwise invisible aspects of food. Unfortunately, the term halal can be subject to variable interpretation and misuse. For this reason, further terms like zabiha become useful. Following migrations of Muslims to the West in general and to the US in particular, a distinction has arisen between the more general moniker halal and the more specific zabiha (also dhabiha) meat. Zabiha is a helpful marker in diasporic communities of Muslim immigrants owing to the use of the term halal to refer also to animals slaughtered by Christians and Jews, fellow "people of the book" or AhlalKitab. Some Sunni Muslims argue that the Prophet Muhammad ate meat slaughtered by Jews and Christians. Without assessing historical accuracy, this notion functions socially to permit the same behavior, since the Prophet Muhammad is considered the examplar of good practices. Although Sunny laws allow for eating meats prepared by AHL ALKitab, Shi'i law is less lenient. Some Islamic legal scholars have concluded that meat slaughtered by Christians and Jews is permissible if, before eating this meat, the Muslim eater prayerfully names God.
ROBINSON - REFRESHING THE CONCEPT OF HALAL MEAT RESISTANCE AND RELIGIOSITY IN CHICAGO'S TAQWA ECO-FOOD COOPERATIVE SARAH E. ROBINSON page 1
Have you not seen that it is God to whom mall the beings in the earth bow themselves down - and so too the sun and the moon and the stars and the mountains and the trees and the beasts? Quran 22:18 TAQWA Eco - Food Cooperative serves four communites: -Consumers -Food production workers -Animals -Mother Earth. The cooperative aims to restore Islamic ethics in raising of livestock and poultry. It does so by replacing inhumane farming practices with healthy and ecologically respectful techniques, thereby improving standards of food production. —taqwa eco-food cooperative Traditionally Muslims eat HALAL MEAT, "permissible" meat, from particular animals that have been slaughtered using specific techniques. These food standards are defined by the Quran and interpreted by Muslim religious leaders. Yet in 2010, founding coordinator of the TAQWA Eco food Cooperative Shireen Pishdadi asserted: "Halal is not just about how you slaughter the animal, right? I mean, if you are exploiting people, enslaving people to grow your food, how is that halal?" In the first decade of the twenty first century, Pishdadi and other TAQWA leaders challenged norms in their local Muslim community in Chicago by broadening the view of halal standards to encompass environmental and social justice concerns. They also challenged US industrial meat production, which meant resisting certain assimilation pressures in the years following September 11, 2001.
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In addition to the challenges in doing practical and educational work on behalf of Taqwa, Pishdadi faced controversy by opposing certain aspects of the local community's focus on halal certification and branding.Although she attributed this division to the community's preference fora ssimilation, with the changing tides of U.S. popular culture, "green" living has shifted from an alternative practice to a quasi-mainstream one since the early 2000s. Thus, a private business named Whole Earth Meats,Taqwa's next of kin, may benefit from the increasingly positive valence of green living and local, sustainable meats, as well as from the groundwork Taqwa laid in the realm of community education.
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In another case, Shaykh Abdullah found the same machine and blade used to kill pigs and halal animals, potentially rendering the halal- certified meat haram (not permissible) if the knife was not properly cleaned. 14 He concluded that half of American Muslims eat questionable meat even when they buy halal-certified meat. Taqwa's website included meat slaughter standards consistent with Qur'anic zabiha specifications: naming God, using a pre- sharpened blade, avoiding needless suffering and excess fear in the animal, and attending to the animal's hunger and thirst and offering soothing before slaughter. Hassan described Whole Earth Meats products as zabiha-halal, fusing termsto perhaps doubly indicate their legal permissibility and acceptability.In sharp contrast with the drive-by slaughter blessing, Hassan described witnessing a traditional zabiha slaughter while visiting Mauritania, West Africa, in 2002, two years before he began with Taqwa. The cattle herd walked near his tent during his entire two-month stay. His Mauritanian friend performed the ritual slaughter technique, which Hassan witnessed:"You wouldn't even have known that an animal was being slaughtered.It was so much finesse there, just so much compassion and so much ease and method. Hassan's experience made a deep impression about the potential for a prayerful relationship with the act of slaughter and with the sacrificed animal. Hassan brought this encounter to his work with Taqwa, as well as to Whole Earth Meats.
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
In the Quran there are a set of actions that are prescribed for Muslims. -Essential Actions and can view as ritual approaches that help to implement this corrective within humans. Five Pillars of Islam How to implement moral order. 1) Recitation of the Shahadah 2) Prayers prescribed for certain times of the day. (prevent evil and help humans overcome difficulties) 43 One month's fast (during the month of Ramadan) (from dawn to sunset, to cultivate discipline and empathy) (Note that the fast is core to Muslim practice and moral discipline) 4) Zakat (welfare tax, to be distributed to the poor, giving to those who are in need) 5) Pilgrimage to Mecca (as a demonstration of solidarity with other Muslims)
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In the context of abuses present in U.S. industrial agriculture, Pishdadi led the organization to define project goals, mak-ing central the practice of taqwa. To Pishdadi, the term taqwa reflected a Muslim sense of constant attentiveness to God's presence and judgment,a directive to live justly. The organization strove to do this through community education about agriculture and a program of meat distribution.Coordinators from the local Muslim community shaped Taqwa's scope and direction, in consultation and collaboration with their religious communities, volunteers, Faith in Place staff, board directors, and all cooperative participants who bought meat. Interviews with Taqwa's first and last coordinators, Shireen Pishdadi and Qaid Hassan, showed that both brought enthusiasm, idealism, andcritical-constructive religiosity to the project, expressed through a strong commitment to the health and well-being of every person and animal they encountered. They paid particular attention to farmers, reaching out to people who may never have met a Muslim, developing business partnerships and friendships, and strengthening respectful relations through paying a living wage. Taqwa coordinators did not represent Islamas official religious leaders such as imams and shaykhs. As laypeople, they did not engage in formal legal inquiry with the intention of establishing Islamic juridical precedent, thus rendering their voices more marginal within the tradition. Nevertheless, Pishdadi and Hassan genuinely sought to engage their religious tradition concerning food, including its quality,reflected by relationships with people, animals, and land as expressions of religious commitment. They provided critical attention to problems while working to provide constructive solutions, and they spoke poetically and with inspiring vision.
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MEAT RESTRICTIONS AND THE QUR'AN'S GOLDEN MEAN IN MECCAN SURAHS On four occasions and with only minimal variation, the Qur'an expresses the dietary norms that believers—and, indeed, humanity in general—ought to observe. The least elaborate of these expressions reads as follows: "God has only prohibited for you carrion [maytah], blood, the meat of swine, and meat over which [a being] other than God has been invoked. As for one who is compelled, neither desiring [to eat such food] nor intending to transgress, surely God is Forgiving, Merciful" elaborates upon the last of these four food restrictions. This surah enjoins believers to "eat from that over which God's name was mentioned, if you truly believe in His revelations" and cajoles believers for refraining from consumption of such food when it is not otherwise prohibited, lest they appear to observe unfounded food restrictions. Believers must, however, avoid transgression. "And do not eat from that over which the name of God has not been mentioned; it is indeed a sinful act. The devils inspire their friends to dispute with you; but if you obey them, then you will surely be idolaters. The act of eating meat from an animal slaugthered without the invocation of God marks the consumer as an idolater, perhaps because the Qur'an assumes another being was invoked instead; we encountered similar rhetoric in the Books of Maccabees and the New Testament.
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
Muhammad in the Lives of Muslims -The role of Muhammad in Muslim lives. TESTIMONY OF FAITH -The SHAHADA -There is no deity but God (Allah), and Muhammad is the Messenger of God. -Muhammad is not worshipped (only Allah is), but he is the embodiment of Muslim identity. (Muhammad is regarded as this perfect example of how all of the commandments given to him about how to live in the world are lived out.) That is why the Qur'an which is the collection of these commandments is often studied alongside the Sunnah. -Regarded as perfect example of how Allah's commandments are to be carried out. Imitating, not worshipping, the Prophet. -Quran is often studied alongside the Prophet's sunnah (his actions and deeds) guiding Muslims on how to live in the world. -Reports about Prophet's words and deeds = Hadith (2nd foundational text in Islam after Quran)
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
Muslims, Christians, and Jews and how they are connected with one another. -Who are the people who "were given the book?" (In the Quran that Jews and Christians as people who were given the book - meaning they are also connected to the same God) -Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all connected to the same God, worship the same God, and are connected to the same patriarch, Abraham. -Jews and Christians - both of whom also worship the one God and view Abraham as their patriarch. -In the Quran, are Muslims the only religious community to have a relationship with God? No. Christians and Jews also have a relationship to God. -How does the Quran present its relationship to the Bible and Torah? Quran presents its relationship to the bible (Gospels) and the Torah, in a way that it is the successor to the previous. -The Quran also distinguishes itself from Jews in particular. EVALUATIONS OF FOOD -The Quran evaluates food as a general food - a gift from the merciful Allah and a sign of Allah's goodness and mercy. -Food is needed to survive and understood as a source of life, illustration of God as the creator of life and sustainer of life (One reason why it is important to give thanks before eating for Muslims) -Don't burden yourself with excessive food laws. (because food is the sign of God's goodness) -Muhammad enjoyed food, rather than avoiding it as a temptation. His foodways are an example for Muslims. Certain foods Muhammad ate have special significance for Muslims in example dates to break his Ramadan fast, and Muslims themselves do this. Gluttony remains a sin, and sharing is emphasized. (Quran is about fixing that inequality)
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO The Quran does still give limited rules about foods that are restricted.
Permitted and Restricted Foods What can a Muslim eat? What can a Muslim not eat? -God has only prohibited for you carrion (maytah) blood, the meat of swine, and meat over which a being other than God has been invoked. -Eat, then, the permitted and good foods God has provided you and give thanks for God's kindness, if you truly worship him. -The food of those who were given the Book - that is meat prepared by Jews and Christians - is permitted to you, and your food is permitted to them. (A sign that those communities are welcomed in)
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Pishdadi emphasized a preference for local sustainable farms over organic ones because, as popular demand increased, industrially produced organic options arose. Sustainable refers to environmental, if not also economic and human community, sustainability. The word sustainable de-notes practices that do not deplete soil, water, or communities beyond that which can be replenished in the natural cycles of renewal. Exploitation of workers and farmers by distributors, financiers, landowners, other farmers, chemical and seed companies, or other entities are examples of unsustainable practices. Local food is region-specific and seasonal, reducing or eliminating many environmental costs. Local food contrasts with industrial agriculture, which can transport foods literally across the planet (e.g., Chilean summer fruits during Northern Hemisphere winters)and require agricultural inputs like petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, plus packaging, transportation, refrigeration, storage, and otherenergy-intensive steps. The rise of large-scale, industrial organic farms changed the playing field for organic agriculture, reducing fossil fuel-based pesticide and chemical fertilizer use. Even so, Pishdadi warned that industrial organic farms can exploit animals, land, and workers, consistent with conventional industrial agriculture.
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
Pre-Islamic Arabia -Largely a tribe centered culture; inequality was rampant. (The tribe that you were born into was incredibly important) -Political battles between tribes meant there was a great deal of war and life was hard. (Battling for control of territory and resources) -Ritual worship sponsored by tribes for political power. (Worship tribal centered deities) Major commonality of religious traditions of that time-Often times worshipped tribal centered deities was ultimately about supporting a particular tribe. The dominant idea -There were multiple Gods and that you could win their political favor by sponsoring worship for them. -Religious worship largely focused on multiplicity of divinities, often associated with tribes. THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD -570 CE-632 CE Lots of inequality and warfare. He was born into a very powerful tribe but at an early age he is orphaned and taken in by his uncle. -Parents died when he was young -Known for his trustworthiness -Disturbed by his cultural context; takes to meditation in caves. (by the warfare & inequalities and the way that individuals treated each other)(And the way Gods are being worshipped where certain tribes win favors from God by offerings) -610 CE: The first revelations (He goes and meditates in a cave and was visited by the Angel Gabriel who told him to "recite") -Over many years, the prophet Muhammad hears messages from the Angel Gabriel. (messages from God) -Command to recite ultimately about Muhammad's command to share the teachings and the ideas that are given to him through the Angel Gabriel from God
Introducing Islam and Muslim Foodways VDO
Qur'an (Quran or Koran) A compilation of revelations that Muhammad receives from God. This is also thought to be the word of God. -Word of God - divine thought and law incarnated in words. The idea here are these are directly the words of God. Muhammad receives these words in Arabic. Arabic itself is thought to be the language of God -Also why the Quran or Koran itself is thought to be an approached as an embodiment of Allah in the world. Respect is shown to the Quran. It's like the presence of God in their home. So they won't put a drink on it or leave it on the floor. -Sound itself is an emanation from Allah - Arabic -Allah is thought to communicate with humans out of mercy -At center of Qur'an is humanity and its betterment. The idea that humanity can improve itself by following these particular commandments that Allah gives. -Muhammad recognizes there is a great amount of injustice and suffering. The Quran is thought to be this corrective. That humanity is on the wrong track, let me remind you, show you how to get back on track, and that starts by worshipping and following commandments on how to live your life. It's a directive and commandment on how to live ones life.
"Eat the Permitted and GoodFoods God Has Given You" Relativizing Communities in the Qur'an
Qur'anic dietary laws, like those of the Hebrew Bible and the early Christian community, express their adherents' relationship to God without in the process segregating the Qur'an's community of "believers" from outsiders.1 Like early Christian counterparts, Qur'anic discourse functions as a means of defining these believers in contrast to idolaters on the one hand and Jews on the other—communities associated with distinct dietary practices.2 Indeed, both the limited set of meat-related regulations endorsed by the Qur'an and its rhetoric regarding the Jews and their more extensive dietary norms closely resemble those articulated by Christian authorities. Given our recent encounter with the ways Christians came to employ such anti-Jewish rhetoric, we might anticipate that the Qur'an sharply condemns the consumption of Jewish food. In fact, however, the Qur'an declares that "the food of those who were given the Book"—that is, meat prepared by Jews and Christians—"is permitted to you, and your food is permitted to them" (Q. 5.5). This statement, atypical within the present study because it explicitly permits the consumption of food associated with foreigners, expresses the notion that We and They share crucial attributes in common. Consumption of meat from the same butchers, as the epigraph to part IV makes clear, constitutes a significant marker of identity.
Islamic Sources on Foreign Food Restrictions
Relativizing Otherness Page 2 The Messenger of God, may the prayer and peace of God be upon him, said,"Whoever recites our prayers and worships in the direction of our qiblah andeats the meat of our slaughtered animals, that person is a Muslim who hasthe protection of God and the protection of His messsenger, so do not betrayGod through your treatment of those under His protection."
PAGE 9 Antithetical: directly opposed or contrasted; mutually incompatible. "people whose religious beliefs are antithetical to mine"
SHARING "THE TABLE" BELIEVERS AND PEOPLE OF THE BOOK IN MEDINAN SURAHS We observed in part III that Christian authorities, after initially portraying their community's food practices in contrast to the idolatry of the gentiles on the one hand and the excessive restrictiveness of the Jews on the other, come to equate Jews and idolaters in the process of defining Judaism as antithetical to Christianity. A similar rhetorical progression can be found within the Qur'an. Medinan surahs, which make no reference to dietary practices associated with idolatry, emphasize the difference between the freedom of believers to eat all permitted foods and the punitive restrictions incumbent upon Jews. These surahs, unlike their Meccan counterparts and like Christian sources, also conflate Judaism with idolatry in the process of portraying Jews (and, to a lesser extent, Christians) as especially hostile to the community of believers and particularly misguided in their understanding of the divine will. The Qur'an, however, departs from the path taken by Christian authorities: it affirms the affinity between believers in its revelation and the recipients of previous scriptures.Jews and Christians, far from being "anti-Us," are actually "like Us" to a significant degree, and We, in turn, are like Them. Food-related passages in the aptly namedSūrat al-mā'idah ("The Table," surah 5) express this distinctive conception of foreigners through their depictions of the complex relationship between the Qur'an's believers and those who had been given the Book before them.
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SURAT AL-NAHL then adds, "We prohibited for the Jews that which We related to you previously. We did not wrong them: rather, they wronged themselves." This reminder, followed by an exhortation of repentance, serves to demonstrate God's ability to punish as well as to be merciful. Believers who behave as they should are rewarded with mercifully lenient laws and the promise of greater kindness in store, but those who transgress may find themselves in the situation of the Jews or, worse, that of idolaters or unbelievers. Like its counterpart in Alanam, this passage carefully maintains the distinction between idolaters and Jews through its structure and its terminology, although in this case the Jews are "wrongdoers" while "falsehood" and "fabrication" alike are imputed to idolaters. The terms apply to each of these foreign communities are interchangeable in these two passages, but the dietary practices of these communities and the relationship of each of the norms that apply to believers are kept distinct. Discourse about food restrictions functions in both of these passages to define the identity of the believing community: We are non Jewish monotheists.
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Sūrat al-an'ām contrasts the limited meat-related regulations that believers ought to observe not only with the bizarre practices ascribed to idolaters but also with the more extensive restrictions incumbent upon Jews. "As for the Jews, We prohibited every animal with undivided toes and We prohibited the fat of cattle and sheep, except what their backs or entrails carry or what is mixed with bones. This is Our recompense to them for their transgression. We are surely Truthful. If they accuse you of speaking falsely, say: 'All-encompassing is the mercy of Your Lord,but His wrath cannot be turned back from the sinful people'" (6.146-47). The Qur'an presents the burdensome dietary restrictions observed by Jews as a form of punishment for Israelite transgressions.
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TAQWA eco food cooperative: Enacting Justice through food practice. Taqwa was originally envisioned, organized, and funded by a Chicago interreligious and environmental nonprofit organization, Faith in Place. Shortly after September 11, 2001,Director Rev. Dr. Clare Butterfield witnessed increasing vilification of local Muslim Americans and endeavored to strengthen interfaith connections. Butterfield hired Shireen Pishdadi, who became Taqwa's founding coordinator, and they defined the potential needs that an environmental project could fill in the local Muslim community. Their agricultural project could fill in the local Muslim community. Their agricultural project showed the potential to both address the existing concern of sourcing healthy halal meat and counteract the ethical challenges - environmental and social of industrially produced meat. The Arabic term taqwa has multilayered meaning, translated as "fear of God" or more specifically "being mindful of God." This ethical concept encourages Muslims to live with reverence that God will judge each person accordingly. Pishadid explained that Islam is a way of life, a worldview of perpetual spiritual attentiveness, lacking separation between religious and mundane practice.
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TAQWA encouraged the community to express religious commitments through daily food practices, promoting a wider interpretation of Islam's environmental and social relevance. It focused on eating only local, sustainably farmed animals, a perspective not widely shared in the larger Midwestern or American culture, nor in the local Muslim community in the early 2000s. At that time, local, sustainable, and more humanely raised meat options were absent in the urban Chicago landscape. Taqwa's meat choices sharply contrasted with readily available, lower priced meats form industrial farming norm, including those industrially produced meats labeled halal. Thus, as an organization, TAQWA faced a double challenge, critiquing mainstream US industrial food systems and inviting local Muslim families to do the same at an awkward moment in history. Post 9/11 the local Muslim community was subject to discrimination and targeting. In this climate, according to Pishdadi, many Muslims preferred to assimilate than to challenge American norms. As anti-Muslim sentiment increased and pressures to assimilate were extraordinarily high, TAQWA's critique of industrial halal standards and conventional food production practices proved controversial.
ROBINSON - REFRESHING THE CONCEPT OF HALAL MEAT RESISTANCE AND RELIGIOSITY IN CHICAGO'S TAQWA ECO-FOOD COOPERATIVE SARAH E. ROBINSON page 2
TAQWA leaders applied a critical constructive religiosity to their work, combining education with distribution of local, sustainable, and more humanely raised meat in the Chicago community, and they did it in a historical moment fraught with particular challenges for Muslim Americans. In the 2004 book Globalized Islam, political scientist Oliver Roy describes an increase in religiosity among Muslims living in non Muslim majority countries, which here applies to TAQWA leaders. Roy defines RELIGIOSITY as "self-formulation and self-expression of a personal faith" in contrast with religion, "a coherent corpus of beliefs and dogmas collectively managed by a body of legitimate holders of knowledge. As lay-people rather than formal religious leaders, Taqwa coordinators critiqued the U.S. industrial food system for its mistreatment of farmers, land, and the animals themselves. They held a vision of Muslim food practice emphasizing the spirit of Islamic law and its multi-layered justice, rather than the letter of Islamic law as expressed in contemporary halal standards and still framed within the industrial system of food production. TAQWA meats kept consistent with the letter of the law, however, ensuring ZABIHA meat from halal animals, slaughtered by a Muslim in a prescribed ritual manner. These terms are described further below.
PAGE 6 Monotheistic: relating to or characterized by the belief that there is only one God. "a monotheistic religion"
That the contents of Qur'anic dietary laws closely resemble those found in JewIsh and Christian texts should come as no surprise. The Qur'an, after all, presents itself as the divinely authored Book previously revealed to the Jews as the Torah and to the Christians as the Gospels. Adherence by the believers to norms shared by Jews and Christians merely reflects the common origins which the Qur'an itself ascribes to these three communities and, indeed, serves to bolster the Qur'an's own authority as successor to the Torah and Gospels. Of greater significance for the purpose of understanding Qur'anic ideas about the identity of its believers is the fact that Meccan surahs consistently express norms about meat within a rhetorical context similar to the one employed in Acts of the Apostles. We observed in chapter 6 that Acts uses food-related practices both to represent the establishment of a new community united by its belief in Christ and to set gentile Christ-believers apart from their idolatrous counterparts without requiring them to become Jews. The Qur'an, I suggest, employs the rhetoric of the golden mean in its presentation of the dietary laws for the same purpose; discourse about food restrictions furthers the goal of establishing a new, emphatically monotheistic, community distinct from and preferable Judaism.
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The Qur'an's catalog of food restrictions, which appears in Meccan and Medinan surahs alike, resembles the prohibitions expressed in the New Testament's Apostolic Decree. The apostles and elders in Jerusalem instruct gentile Christ-believers to abstain from food offered to idols, blood, and strangled meat (Acts 15.29), injunctions that retained their force among Eastern Christians well into the Islamic period. Qur'anic and New Testament prohibitions of food offered to beings other than God are functionally equivalent, and their prohibitions of blood are identical. The Greek term pnikton (strangled meat), which refers to the meat of an animal which has not been slaughtered in the manner necessary for its blood to drain out,corresponds to the Arabic maytah. Only the Qur'an's prohibition of pork would be foreign to many Eastern Christians, whose authorities seized upon consumption of the pig as a symbol of the distinction between Christian and Jewish dietary practices; the Qur'an here affirms a taboo found not only in the Torah but also in pre-Islamic Arabian society.
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The foundations of this distinctly Islamic approach to the classification of foreigners may be seen in passages of the Qur'an that address the intertwined themes of meat-related food restrictions, foreign dietary practices, and the food of foreigners. Qur'anic discourse about meat-related food restrictions regularly juxtaposes the dietary norms which believers ought to follow with the beliefs and practices of foreigners, demonstrating that adherence to these norms marks believers as distinct from idolaters and Jews. Passages that address these restrictions, however, express THREE different, albeit overlapping, ideas about the relationship between the Qur'an's audience of believers and members of other religious communities. Surahs ascribed to the Meccan period of Muhammad's prophethood (ca. 610-22) portray these dietary laws as a golden mean between two undesirable sets of food practices: those of idolaters on the one hand and those of Jews on the other.
Page 7 or 134 Idolatrous: worshiping idols. "the idolatrous peasantry"
The most extensive discussion of food practices in the Qur'an appears in SURATAL ANAM. This passage begins by reporting that "wrongdoers" dedicate some of their food not to its true Creator but rather to the demigod-like partners whom they have ascribed to God. These idolatrous wrongdoers-who go so far as to kill their own children for the sake of these partners - allege that God has decreed a series of bizarre meat - related food restrictions, allegations that the Qur'an repeatedly dismisses as "fabrications." In truth, God created all crops and animals for the use of humankind and only prohibited consumption of carrion, blood, por, and that over which a being other than God was invoked. Qur'anic idolaters, like the gentiles depicted in Hellenistic - era Jewish literature, lack accurate knowledge about God and the divine will; as a result, they engage in abhorrent practices. Believers in contrast, possess true knowledge, which is made manifest in their awareness of God's revelation regarding permitted and prohibited meat and in their ability to demonstrate the falsehood of the idolaters' claims.
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The notion that God has established an ongoing relationship with more than one religious community through the revelation of a scripture, moreover, reflects a core attribute of the Qur'an's worldview: holiness is not exclusive to Us. Consequently, the Qur'an and later Islamic authorities do not define adherents of other religions simply as "not Us" or "anti-Us," the paradigms we have encountered in Jewish and Christian discourse regarding profane and impure foreigners. Rather, Islamic sources imagine outsiders to be "like Us" or "unlike Us" to various degrees. To return to our numerical spectrum in which insiders are assigned the value "1", Jewish and Christian authorities define gentiles as "0", Christian authorities define Jews as "-1," and the Qur'an assigns Jews and Christians alike a value less than 1 but greater than 0. By relativizing the otherness of religious foreigners, the classificatory system developed by Islamic authorities serves to define Islam itself in relation to other religions, foremost among them Judaism and Christianity.
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These regulations, unlike those fabricated by idolaters, are authentically divine in their origin, yet there is no reason for any non-Jew to observe them. The Qur'an, like the Church Fathers, teaches that believers in God's final revelation are not Jews and ought not adhere to all the dietary prohibitions found in the Torah.In establishing the dietary practices of the believing community as preferable to two undesirable alternatives, Sūrat al-an'ām is careful to maintain the distinction between its foils. It does so both by discussing each foil separately and by employing different terminology with reference to each. Idolaters are "wrongdoers" (al-Œālimūn) whose claims about the divine will are based on "fabrication" (mā yaf-tarūn). The "sinful" Jews (al-qawm al-mujrimīn), in contrast, adhere to an authentic revelation, albeit one that stems from their "transgression" (baghyihim) and therefore does not warrant emulation. The Jews may without warrant accuse believers of speaking falsely (kadhdhabūka), but they neither fabricate false claims about Godnor transgress the divinely ordained dietary laws endorsed by the Qur'an.
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Various organizations provide halal certification in the United States and globally. For example, another Chicago nonprofit organization, the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), provides halal certification and education on a global scale, assessing food, pharmaceuticals, skin products, and packaging. Organizations like IFANCA use both business people and religious leaders to interpret the meaning of halal within contemporary food systems. Its halal definition excludes pork and its by-products, improperly killed animals, alcohol and intoxicants, carnivorous animals and birds of prey, and foods tainted with any of these ingredients. 7 Though other Chicago Muslims worked toward establishing halal standards for Illinois state and for the world, Taqwa leaders were less concerned with the global business of industrially produced foods that received the stamp of halal approval. Products like Starbucks mocha Frappuccinos and Pringles potato chips are halal simply because they contain no pork byproducts or alcohol-based flavorings, but these products remain industrially produced and thus ethically suspect. Instead, TAQWA leaders focused on humane locale meat sourcing options.
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Whereas the "unbelievers" we encountered in the Meccan Sūrat al-nanl are evidently turncoats from the community of believers which the Qur'an itself addresses,in Al-mā'idah and other Medinan surahs the term unbelief (kufr) frequently refers to Jews and Christians who profess false theology or dismiss the authenticity of the Qur'an. For example, the table that gives Sūrat al-mā'idah its name descends from heaven upon Jesus' request as edible evidence of Jesus' prophethood and God's providence.
