Muslim dietary taboos

The core of Muslim dietary taboos originate from the provisions of Islamic teachings. The core taboo categories are pork, self-dead animals, animal blood, edible animals slaughtered without reciting the name of Allah, and various alcoholic drinks. Muslims of different sects, different regions, and different religious piety have obvious differences in the implementation of taboos, and there is no globally unified rigid standard.

My early understanding of these rules was actually very rigid. I always felt that as long as I was a Muslim, I could never enter a non-halal restaurant or touch anything related to pork. It wasn’t until I went to Qinghai Huzhu on a business trip a few years ago and had a meal with my local Salar friend Ma Ming that I changed my mind. At that time, he had just returned to Qinghai to work after studying in the mainland. We gathered together to eat Chongqing hot pot. He took the initiative to choose the clean oil pot, saying that as long as there was no pork or lard in the pot, it would be fine. There was no need to go around several kilometers to find a halal hot pot restaurant. Instead, his grandfather who came with him specially I went to a nearby halal restaurant to buy some beef with sauce and brought it over. I was told that the pork was stir-fried in the pot outside. The grandfather and grandson ate the mutton in the hot pot and drank happily with Bingfeng. The other ate white pancakes with their own beef. No one said anything wrong, and the atmosphere was very relaxed.

Many people think that these taboos are made up by later generations to restrain people. In fact, the core provisions are clearly written in the Quran and Hadith, and the original settings did not come out of thin air. If you think about it, most of the ancient Arabian Peninsula was a Gobi desert. Pig raising required a lot of water and plant feed, which was not in line with local production conditions. In addition, pigs were omnivorous and loved to eat dirt. In the era when there were no epidemic prevention measures, they could easily carry pathogenic bacteria. The probability of getting into trouble after eating them was too high, and they were gradually classified as "unclean" animals and included in the scope of fasting. The same logic applies to fasting from dead animals and blood. In the era without cold chains, animals dying by themselves were most likely due to disease or poisoning, and toxins were likely to remain in the blood. Listing these as taboos was essentially a summary of early survival experience, but later it gradually became a religious precept.

Interestingly, even if they belong to the same Muslim group, people from different sects have quite different definitions of the boundaries of taboos. I used to know a Shiite international student from Iran. Last time I went to the seafood market and squatted there for a long time to pick hairy crabs. He said that their sect allows eating crustacean aquatic products. My Gansu Hui friends who were traveling with me are Sunni, so they shook their heads and said that the rules in their hometown are that they cannot eat aquatic products without scales and gills, including crabs. The two argued about this for a long time. In the end, one took the crabs back to steam, and the other bought seabass to stew at home. No one interfered with the other. There are also regulations on alcohol. The scriptures clearly state that alcohol is "filth" and should be kept away. However, I have also seen many young Muslims living in cities who would take a few sips of low-alcohol wine when gathering with friends in private. However, they would never do it in front of their elders or at religious events, and everyone understood this tacitly.

There used to be rumors on the Internet that Muslims don't eat pork because they regard pigs as their ancestors. This is pure nonsense - Islam is a monotheistic religion and explicitly prohibits idol worship. It is impossible to worship any animal as an ancestor. This statement is simply a malicious smear against the Muslim community, and there is no basis for it. There are also many merchants who think that as long as pork is not used in cooking, it is considered halal. In fact, formal halal certification requires that no contact with forbidden ingredients is allowed in the entire process from slaughtering, processing to transportation and storage. I have seen supermarkets put halal beef sausages and pork sausages in the same freezer. The old Muslim people passing by shook their heads and left. However, a young Hui girl picked it up, wiped the packaging and put it in the shopping cart, saying that the meat inside was fine anyway, and there was no need to pay so much attention.

To be honest, after dealing with different Muslim friends for so many years, my biggest feeling is that you must not apply one set of standards to everyone. Some people strictly abide by all religious requirements, some people have just developed eating habits since childhood and do not believe in religion. Some people study and work in other places and only avoid the core taboo ingredients. Some people live in areas with a strong religious atmosphere and strictly abide by all rules. If you really meet a Muslim friend and have dinner together, it is much more reliable to ask "Do you have any taboos" than to make blind assumptions about other people's beliefs and ask them to use stereotypes? In the end, these are the living habits of different groups, and mutual respect is enough.