Lynda (this is long)

Submitted by sam (United Kingdom), Feb 20, 2007 at 20:19

Hi Lynda, I'll give u my email address & I can try 2 answer some of your questions though I'm by no means as expert.

The thing about pig is that its meat is pink, not red, nor white. Pigs take a very long time to cook sufficiently enough 2 kill the microscopic insects which feed off of it internally (It's one of the reasons that pork meat is sliced so thin...so that the heat can be penetrated through the meat as much as possible). It's Scientifically the worst meat 2 consume so even if u don't wanna look at it from the religious concept then u can take a new approach by using Science or try 2 find the logic be comparing faiths...u'll be surprised. Some Muslims & even non-Muslims take a silly attitude toward pigs from the point of ‘pigs r lazy…dirty'...blah, blah therefore they r not fit 2 be seen as cute or even 2 be seen as animals 2 an extent.

I believe it's common sense to appreciate & respect pigs as what they r & what they can offer. But it is not beneficial consumption physically & is the living equivalent to 100% fat. I try 2 look at it from a perspective that if God wants 2 test us on everything within our reach then god will forbid us from at least one of his creations in each category if that makes sense. And in animals created in mass it just so happened 2 be the pig with its many negative qualities 2 support that judgement...still does not mean we disrespect it. I know one lovely lady who will never say the word pig; she will only spell it out in letters p-i-g which I find amusing. But it's because of the Prophet Noah's story and his acquaintance to pigs that gave her a bad impression so she is learned. That said; if u were in some sort of accident (God forbid) & needed food & found that the only think available is pig products then Islamically u r at right 2 eat whatever will save u (of course the more u resist; the more sawab &sometimes a little patience will offer u better options). Pig is not toxic, it's toxics that r absolutes under any circumstances. Even halal has been brought to us with thought.

The quickest way any creature will release its soul & therefore lack feelings of pain is by the neck because u r disconnecting the brain from the rest of the body (the brain is the source of feeling which sends nerves 2 every other part of the body) & secondly u r cutting the air...same principle as kosher. So u r doing all u can 2 avoid eating animals injected or beaten or raised unhealthily. It's simply for your own benefit so u can acquire a new view that u're sustaining from those foods coz they won't do u any good rather than co zu're a Muslim & God told u not 2. You will find that even Vegetarianism lacks logic. If a Vegetable is a living creation which adapts, absorbs light, drinks water 2 survive, breathes Oxygen, releases CO2, mates & creates seeds 4 offspring then dies when it is cut at the stem, prepared & cooked then why are vegetarians vegetarian? It just seems like one of the biggest Eastern & now Western (as an adopted way of life) contradictions 2 me. I don't condone extremes; it always leads to misunderstanding or confusion.

About your mother, she's wrong 2 snap back but u can appreciate that she doesn't know everything, neither does my mother. Islam prides itself on openness surprisingly & it prides itself on its diversity, reason & challenging nature. But not much will be found on surface, u have to scratch sometimes in order to make the links. A lot of people confuse Muslims for Islam or old Arabia/ Persia sometimes for Islam & that's wrong, as far as we know many Arabs were savages pre-Islam so u have to keep tradition in mind when people tell u certain things. I live in an environment full of Indians and Pakistanis & I've heard some ludicrous things, I'm fortunate 2 be able 2 speak Arabic & to know that there talk is unfounded & also to ask parents.

Hadith's r a source that go with the Qur2an because the Hadith tells u how 2 live as a Muslim, how 2 try and emulate the lifestyle of our beloved ones essentially. Some Hadith's might require more expertise. But u can't dismiss those because it is our prophets (pbuh) messages…after all he was sent as a messenger. And it is why he married Aiysha (raa), coz she would be the best 1 to observe his life & learn a lot of what he said. Hadith's can play a little bit like Chinese whispers; u have to look at how many names passed the hadith down & know also whether they r reliable people because there were many people who did lie or fabricate in order 2 paint a bad picture but this kind of thing is a scholars work. You can just try to buy reliable books or just be careful of the websites u use. It's always better to go to websites created by scholars.

Someone above has given a nice example about Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. Like I said b4 it's not 1, 2, 3 or even 20 reasons…it's 100's of reasons. A simple but important one is if that if a couple have a son the nature in Islam is that at some point dad will be required to take the son to mosque to pray, especially il gom3a prayers which is an opportunity to gather and socialize with other Muslim males, there's also Ramadan prayers & it seems too far fetched to see a non-Muslim male making effort for his son in the direction of Islam, & teaching him about charity & fasting. Women including non-Muslim women are naturally more charitable and generous that any male. I can not see a non-Muslim male contributing in charity during Ramadan or teaching his son about it. As we know in Islam if a grown man skips 3 gom3a prayers it will work 2 his disadvantage. A woman has much more positive characteristics like care & nurture & she is greater frankly…we have these Islamic quotes ‘the woman is the good deed (hassanit) of the earth', ‘heaven lies at the feet of your mother'…etc but universally we never ever & no matter what society will preach against it will see the mother as head of the household, head of society, it's not part of us, our whole body is based on giving life and giving love. Part of why society now is at a low is due to the absence of the father role model. But anyhow I talk too much, sorry. To be cont…

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