Unavailability Of Halal Food In Non-Muslims Countries

We have very recently shifted to Tokyo and are having problems regarding ḥalāl food. It is available but imported from either Brazil or Australia. The quality of the meat is highly compromised. It is soggy and has a bad smell. I have made inquiries and found out that ḥalāl food restaurants are using the same imported meat with the result that they barely have any customers specially the Pakistani ones which are hardly known. The other Muslim restaurants are using a combination of ḥalāl and non-ḥalāl meats so that they can present a decent cuisine to their customers. We cannot get the animals ḥalāl ourselves within Tokyo. More over in trying to avoid ham, pork and all other non-ḥalāl meat we end up making so many mistakes. Whether we ask for sea food or only vegetables there is always a catch somewhere. Some combination of either a chicken broth base or sprinkle of shredded ham is offered which is hard to recognize. This is regardless whether we are eating at home or in the restaurants. I have tried checking the butcheries here they do drain out the blood completely by hanging the animal but the animal is dead before that. My question is what do we do? Should we go ahead and have chicken and beef at least we know what we are eating instead of having a cheese pizza and end up having undetected ham. The available ḥalāl meat is something my children refuse to eat. No amount of extended cooking or seasoning takes the smell away.

May Allah bless you for you work in the way of Islam.

Regards,

Sameera Mālik

I can understand your situation as I have experienced being in the Far East countries, although only for short visits. The problem is the diet of the Far East nations is so different than many other nations including the rest of Asia that it makes it quite difficult for foreigners to identify ingredients of a food let alone determining whether it is ḥalāl or not.

As you said you have just moved to Japan. This tells me that you are not yet fully aware of all the facilities and possibilities in the place you are living. I don’t know what the population of Muslims in Tokyo is but I imagine it should be a significant number. My suggestion is that get in touch with different Muslim communities and mosques and see if they have any solutions about ḥalāl meat and if they can give you some advice on the nature of food and food ingredients in Japan.

Now let us assume that after doing the above you have come to the conclusion that this meat is in deed the only available meat in Tokyo and that its bad smell is not because of you not being used to it but is really because of its bad quality (an assumption that I think will be very unlikely to become true).

One of the points of tadhkyah (slaughtering according to Sharī‘ah) is to make sure we will consume a healthy meat. If you have really found the ḥalāl meat to be of a bad quality then you are in a way considering it to be not healthy enough to consume. In this case you should not consume this meat and are allowed, within reason and only to fulfil your essential needs, to consume a meat that is not slaughtered in accordance with Sharī‘ah.

The Holy Qur’ān says:

He has forbidden you only carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine, also any flesh that is slaughtered in the name of someone other than God. But whoever is driven to necessity, intending neither to desire nor to transgress, incurs no sin. Indeed, God is Forgiving and Merciful. (Al-Baqarah 2:173)

Meanwhile it seems sensible for the Muslim community in Tokyo to come up with some solutions to this assumingly common problem. I again stress that the above solution only applies when you are sure that there are no alternatives and that the bad smell of the meat indicates that it is not healthy.

As for the ingredient of dishes, again the more you stay in Japan the more you will become familiarise with the nature of meals you see. My suggestion is that after a reasonable study of the nature of dishes in Japan, set some practically feasible standards for yourself in terms of what to eat and what not to eat and stick to them. Do not allow over cautious thoughts to make you go above your standards and also do not allow laziness and desire to make you go below your standards.

Remember that God does not burden a person beyond his capacity (Al-Baqarah 2:286) and does not intend to put us in difficulty with his directives (Al-Baqarah 2:185). A Muslim like any other human being deserves to be able to live in ease and comfort in any place at the surface of the Earth. Our religious duties bind us to some standards but these standards are within reasons and we should not take them as a burden in our life. We are also given allowances as discussed above.