by Olaide Akande

Created on: July 10, 2009   Last Updated: July 14, 2009

The dietary laws of Muslims derive from the shari'ah (Islamic legal code) which in turn derives from the Quran, and the sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Halal means permissible, and while most people tend to associate it with food, it applies to all other aspect of the Muslim's life, like Halal clothes, or Halal earnings and so on.

The basic ruling concerning food in Islam and in fact most other mundane aspects of life is that of permissibility unless otherwise indicated, so the default option is to assume a particular kind of food is permitted unless there is clear evidence from the shar'iah stating otherwise. The basis for the prohibition of most of the impermissible foods is that of impurity.

Meat and Other Animal Products.

Laws regarding these are perhaps the most detailed of the dietary laws. Muslims must eat meat from animal that has been properly slaughtered according to the dictates of the law. The proper method of slaughter in Islam involves using a well sharpened knife to slit the throat of the animal, making sure the wind pipe is cut, and allowing its blood to flow. While some people may consider this form of slaughter to be "inhumane", it must be noted that a specific recommendation is for one to ensure the knife is well sharpened so as to cause little suffering to the animal as possible. Meat from strangled animals or animals killed by blunt force is unlawful to consume. Another major condition is that one must mention the name of Allah at the time of slaughtering.

As for those meats that are unlawful to eat, they are from three main categories. The first is meat from a dead animal (i.e. died a natural death) with the exception to this being fish and other sea animals. Also if one were to use a trained hunting animal to catch and kill a prey, then this is also permissible to eat as long as one had mentioned the name of Allah before setting forth the animal to hunt. If one were the hunter himself, then the condition of the weapon is that it has to kill the animal with a sharp rather than blunt force in such a way that blood flows forth from the dead animal.

The second category is consumption of the blood from animals with two exceptions again being the spleen and liver (this is obviously not directly blood but contains significant amounts of the blood from the animal).

The third and well known type of meat prohibited for Muslims is pork; this is mainly because of the filth of

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