bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 14 – Is Some of the Food We Eat Blessed by Allah?

2013 Ramadan PrayerA British cafeteria worker lost her job after an “unintentional error” of serving non-halal food to Muslim students at the Moseley School in Birmingham. Despite having children of multiple faiths at the school, all 1,400 students are served halal meat only regardless of their religion.

Last year a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in South Africa was forced to rehire a worker that was fired for bringing a non-halal meal, consisting of uphuthu and bean curry to work for his lunch. The group that owns several restaurants in the franchise around South Africa had a policy that restricted employees from bringing food to work because they follow Islamic laws.

McDonald’s Restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan has now stopped serving halal items after settling a $700,000 class action lawsuit that was brought against the company alleging the company had served a non-halal chicken sandwich to a Muslim customer. Halal chicken had been served to Muslim customers since 2005.

Many prisons, universities, restaurants, and American retailers such as Costco offer halal products. The website, Zabihah lists restaurant and grocery chains that have one or more outlets that serve halal food or products in several nations including the U.S., the U.K, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia.

Halal is an Arabic word meaning “lawful” or “permissible.” In Islam the term is used to designate items seen as permissible according to Islamic sharia law and covers not only food and drink but also all matters of daily life. The opposite of halal is “haram,” an Arabic word meaning “sinful” which refers to any act that is forbidden by Allah.

Food in Islam can be haram if it includes blood, alcohol, meat or any byproducts from a forbidden animal (pigs, birds of prey, carnivorous animals), and meat or any products of an animal that has not been slaughtered according to sharia law.

Halal Choices describes the ritualistic slaughter, “To be halal certified the animal must be facing Mecca, have its throat cut while still alive and then ritually sacrificed by a Muslim who recites a prayer dedicating the slaughter to Allah. Because the animals must be slaughtered alive, stun guns are often not an option as they can kill and animal before the heart pumps out all the blood.”

Halal certification is big business in western nations, and in order for a company’s food to be certified the companies must pay a fee to the Islamic certifying agency. Halal certification most often is related to meat products, however sometimes companies will have food certified as halal even if the designation is not necessary. For instance the Sydney Morning Herald reported in March that Cadbury chocolate Easter eggs had been certified as halal.

The article further revealed that western companies are being forced to pay for halal certification even if the product would already be considered halal. As an example, Capilano Honey when asked why their product was halal certified replied, “While we appreciate that honey is considered halal under Islamic law, it our customer’s requirement to provide halal certification in order for us to conduct business with them.”

Consumers in Australia can see a listing of halal certified products on a website called Halal Choices. In Australia, some of the international companies are listed are Heinz, Purina, Nestle, and Kelloggs. Similar listings are not available for other countries, however the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, a certifying agency has a current list that consumers in the United States can search of products this particular agency has certified. The listings do not include halal products that may be certified by another Islamic group.

Prayer Points:

Serving halal products to schoolchildren who are not Islamic is a form of dhimmitude. It places the halal food in a superior position to western food, and in order to be certified as halal, it is also economically supporting the religion of Islam. Pray that parents of children of other faiths will insist their children have a choice of the food they are served.

Pray that western companies are not forced to certify their products as halal in order to do business in their own nations.

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 6 – The Mosque

2013 Ramadan PrayerFollowing the Hijra (Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina), the first thing Muhammad did as he entered the outskirts of Medina was to stop at Quba and lay the first stones for a mosque.

Although westerners oftentimes believe a mosque is the equivalent to a Christian church, because of the political and militaristic nature of Islam the two are not the same.  The Mosque Exposed written by Sam Solomon and E. Alamaqdisi, lists traits of the first mosque. Sam Solomon is an expert on Islam who as a Muslim studied Sharia law for fifteen years prior to his conversion to Christianity.

In addition to being a center of religious teachings some other characteristics of the first mosque included:

  1. The first “Islamic seminary” where Muhammad taught his followers.
  2. The center where the affairs of the Islamic state were conducted. Official Islamic delegations were sent from the mosque, and it was in the mosque where all the delegations and tribal representatives were received.
  3. The place where Islamic sharia (law) was unfolded.
  4. The place where jihad was discussed, declared, and directed. It was where Muhammad and his successors chose commanders for jihad operations, and then sent out Islamic armies to wage holy war.

The first mosque was the center of political, governmental, and militaristic aspects of early Islam in addition to being a religious center. The pattern for all future mosques was set. A fatwa (legal pronouncement in Islam) issued in April of 2000 clearly shows modern day mosques continue to emulate the original teachings and purpose of the Medina mosque.  The fatwa reads in part:

“…a mosque is symbol of the presence of Islam, the heartbeat of the Muslim community, an educational outlet where the community is taught to combat evil, ignorance and apostasy. It is a university as well as a court, from where the laws of Allah are promoted, it is a symbol of authority within that community and ultimately within the state and beyond, for the Apostle of Allah said Islam rises and nothing rises above it, for it is the uppermost.”

Mosques are being built across western nations at an alarming rate. At the opening of the Baitur-Rahman Mosque, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, declared, “In Spain there are signs that Islam will dominate once again.”

In Liege, Belgium a mosque is planned with a capacity for 1,000 Muslims. In Munich, Germany politicians are debating where to build the Center for Islam in Europe-Munich, which is “designed to be a strategic platform for spreading Islam throughout Europe.” The government of Greece has pledged to spend $1.4 million to build a mosque in Athens. A mega-mosque complex is planned for Dublin, Ireland.

The former Capernaum Church, a cultural heritage site in Hamburg, Germany is being converted to a mosque.

Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, Grand Mufti of Australia advises that more mosques need to be built to stop young Muslims from becoming radicalized, and in the United States the Turkish government is building a $100 million mosque complex in Maryland.

Prayer Points:

Pray that leaders of western nations realize that a mosque is not simply a religious center – rather that it is patterned after the first mosque and as so it is the center of an Islamic state within its host nation.

Pray that leaders in Christian churches will realize that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God.

Muslims in the mosque pray rote prayers, hoping to satisfy the requirements of their god. Pray for the Muslims as they go to the mosque to pray – that they will have an encounter with the true and living God through Jesus Christ.