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September 19, 2010

Halal to the Queen? Britain's Stealth Halal-ization

Andrew G. Bostom
Creeping Sharia has already extended to the dietary practices of British dhimmis, who are involuntarily consuming meats ritually slaughtered and prayed over in good Islamic practice.
Although this Daily Mail investigation of the stealth Islamization of the British meat industry is largely fixated on the "animal cruelty" aspect of the story, the findings provide another disturbing example of Britain's steady Islamization, as evidenced by its "stealth halal-ization":

....[S]chools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public. All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos', is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them. Even Britain's biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.

For those obsessed with the animal cruelty aspect of the story, I am more concerned about how this "ritual slaughter" is eerily reminiscent of what was inflicted en masse to the hapless Armenians by their "Muslim brethren" neighbors during the  pogroms that culminated in the World War I era jihad genocide of the Armenian Christians. Here is a description of the halal slaughter of livestock, from the Daily Mail story:

Sharia law expressly forbids knocking the animal out with a bolt gun, as is usual in British slaughter­houses. Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited.

And here is an account by Lord Kinross (pp. 669-70) of the human ritual slaughter of Armenian Christians at Urfa during the 1894-96 era of pogroms under Abdul Hamid, which saw the massacre of some 200,000, and because of the abject failure of the West to act against these atrocities, gave the Turks predictable impunity  for their subsequent genocidal massacres during World War I:

Cruelest and most ruinous of all were the massacres at Urfa, where the Armenian Christians numbered a third of the total population.  Here in December 1895, after a two-months siege of their quarter, the leading Armenians assembled in their cathedral, where they drew up a statement requesting Turkish official protection.  Promising this, the Turkish officer in charge surrounded the cathedral with troops.  Then a large body of them, with a mob in their wake, rushed through the Armenian quarter, where they plundered all houses and slaughtered all adult males above a certain age.  When a large group of young Armenians were brought before a sheikh, he had them thrown down on their backs and held by their hands and feet.  Then, in the words of an observer, he recited verses of the Koran and "cut their throats after the Mecca rite of sacrificing sheep."

Returning to the salient feature of the Daily Mail story -- Britain's "stealth halalization", as another aspect of its seemingly inexorable Islamization given the country's cultural relativist malaise, the report further reveals,  "...[t]he extent of halal meat consumption, even in areas of Britain with a very small Muslim population."  Moreover, the Daily Mail juxtaposes this story line, appropriately, with Pope Benedict's recent visit to Britain, and the Pontiff's stern warning:

[The] Pope, on his first visit to Britain, expressed fears that the country was not doing enough to preserve traditional Christian values and customs. In a strongly worded speech to Parliament, he said: "There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none."

In light of such alarming revelations by The Daily Mail, it is worth reviewing these observations by the late respected British scholar of Islam, Dr. Mervyn Hiskett, in Some to Mecca Turn to Pray, first published in 1993.

Hiskett noted (p. 235) the prevailing opinion among leaders of the British Muslim community (i.e., already, almost two decades ago) that unless Muslim immigrants to Britain were allowed unrestrained access to Islamic Law, Shari'a, in all aspects, Britain was to be regarded, Dar-al-Harb, or the House of War, i.e., the target of jihadism. Citing what he characterized as "a more urbane but some may consider ominous statement of the Muslim intention to brook no opposition," Hiskett quoted Zaki Badawi (d. 2006), a Muslim scholar, and former Director of the Islamic Cultural Center, London, who was made an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) in 2004, and also appointed by The Duke of Castro as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I. Incidentally Badawi never became a British subject although he had lived in the country for more than 30 years, and had received all manner of honors there. Badawi opined,

A proseltyzing religion cannot stand still. It can either expand or contract. Islam endeavors to expand in Britain. Islam is a universal religion. It aims at bringing its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole humanity will be one Muslim community, the ‘Umma'

Badawi's "vision" for British society -- so recently deemed unthinkable -- now seems eminently plausible, as  "British humanity" appears well on its way to full integration into the Muslim umma.

Hat tip to The Religion of Peace, the most comprehensive clearinghouse of jihad-related news.

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