A lot of us have encountered the word “halal” on food labels and restaurants, but not all of us know what it actually means. Our Muslim brothers and sisters depend their choice on this term because it signifies what is permitted for them to buy or consume. For a country that has inhabitants with mixed religious affiliations, that word is just as important.

For Muslim-populated nations, seeing halal on food products and eateries is no problem at all since they are run by Muslims who follow Islamic rules. But for areas that have citizens exercising different faiths, then halal is not that easy to come by. Luckily, more and more establishments are becoming conscious of their customers’ preferences.

Halal means lawful or legal. If a food tag has this word on or a restaurant alleges they are halal-certified, it means that the preparation of their food is in accordance with the Islamic dietary law, and consequently, they are allowed to consume the items.

So what is allowed in Islamic law? There are a number of guidelines, but let’s begin with how a meat should be prepared. An animal should be slaughtered by cutting its windpipe and gullet rapidly. This method of ritual slaughter is believed to kill instantly and painlessly.

And because there are halal or permitted items, there are also haraam or prohibited products. For starters, Muslims are not allowed to eat pork and take alcohol. So a product or a restaurant must not use those ingredients to their menu. There should also be no contamination of the items, meaning, if a utensil has been used to prepare a pork meal, it should not be used anymore to prepare a halal-approved item.

Haraam items also comprise of blood, birds of prey or carnivores, animals slaughtered in the name of any god but Allah, corpse of an animal, or those that have been dedicated to another deity.

Halal-certified eateries should conform to the Islamic dietary laws. And because some products are difficult to determine whether they are halal or not, there are Muslim groups who certify food items as halal for buyers. Those products with halal authentication are used as ingredients by halal eateries, just to make very sure that they are strictly observing the laws.

Nowadays, more and more restaurants not run by Muslims still make great effort to follow Islamic dietary laws. Those eateries show that they value and respect all their clients, regardless of their religious orientations.

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