THE HARAAM CHICKEN CARRION AND CRUELTY SAGA
SAGACIOUS COUNSEL BY A NON-MUSLIM ORGANIZATION FOR THE JAMIATUL ULAMA BODIES AND THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY AT LARGE
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Almost 15 years ago – in the year 1993 – a non-Muslim, Mrs L van der Merwe, the Founder of the animal rights organization, Humanity For Hens, in her struggle to alleviate the horrendous plight of the brutalized battery chickens, wrote imploringly to the then Jamiatul Ulama Natal and Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal, as follows:
“In view of the above, it would seem to me that the issuing of Halaal certificates for the products of such cruelty contradicts the spirit of Islam’s teachings.”
In fact, it does not contradict only the spirit of Islam’s teachings. It is in violent contradiction with the very letter of the Sacred Law of Allah Azza Wa Jal Who has made Fardh kindness and mercy to even animals. The non-Muslim lady, continuing with her counsel of wisdom to the senior Ulama of the then two Jamiats, says in her letter:
“I understand that Islam prohibits cruelty to animals and that the Prophet of Islam stressed kindness to animals. In addition, it is my understanding that according to Islamic law it is not permissible to slaughter the chickens while they are suspended upside down and moving on a conveyor belt. If you were to revoke the Halaal certificates for broilers and battery eggs, I believe that in so doing, you would be heralding in a new era in animal welfare. Few other bodies of people have the influence you have to do this.
“Please, in the name of humanity and out of respect for the creation of God, I urge you to consider whether the power you have to change the misery should not be put into force.”
SANHA! MOLVIS! HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME! A NON-MUSLIM LADY HAS SURPASSED YOU IN HER UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM AND THE PURPORT OF THE AHADITH OF RASULULLAH (sallallahu alayhi wasallam).
We reproduce hereunder the full letter of Humanity For Hens. Perchance it may exercise a salubrious effect on your hardened conscience which has become incorribly darkened and corrupted with your halaalizing of carrion and horrendous brutality to Allah’s makhlooq.
HUMANITY FOR HENS
(Fighting the cruelties of the intensive poultry industry)
23 April 1993 P. O. Box 843
Kuils River
Tel. (021) 903 6216 7580
Jamiatul Ulama (Natal)
379 Pine Street Durban
4001
Dear Sirs,
A large number of Muslim people have contacted me querying whether the broiler chickens featured in this organisations' February 1993 Newsletter, Page 2, are in fact the same as are to be found in the supermarkets. On hearing that this is indeed so, many of them express concern that Halaal certificates are being issued for animals which have suffered so horribly in their lifetimes.
The extent of suffering in the poultry industry today is, in our opinion, indefensible. In regard to the table birds one buys at the supermarkets, please see the article on Page 2 as mentioned in the paragraph above, entitled "Update on Broilers" and also the letter written by me to Mr David Findlayson, Managing Director of County Fair and his reply. A similar letter was written to Rainbow Chickens but no reply has been received yet.
The plight of laying hens in batteries is different but just as horrific. These creatures are confined for the entire year of their laying lives in a space allowance per hen which is 25% less than an A4 sheet of paper. Their frustration is such that they have to be debeaked in order to prevent them from killing each other. They never see the sunshine, a blade of grass or even the soil. On removal from their cages, they face the terrors of the cull farms. Please see the middle page of the February 1993 Newsletter for a veterinary perspective on the laying hen.
Other Newsletters are enclosed for your interest and should you be interested in the following videotapes, I will send them at no cost to yourselves; one is of a BBC programme entitled "Fast Life in the Food Chain" which features the horrific plight of animals, such as broilers, caught up in intensive systems. The other video is called "Hidden Suffering"! Although it is made in Britain, the depiction of battery farming in the videos applies equally to this country.
Duck, goose and turkey farming in the video apply to South Africa only in the sense that most of these products are imported from intensive systems as shown in the video.
In view of the above, it would seem to me that the issuing of Halaal certificates for the products of such cruelty contradicts the spirit of Islam's teachings.
I understand that Islam prohibits cruelty to animals and that the Prophet of Islam stressed kindness to animals. In addition, it is my understanding that according to Islamic law it is not permissible to slaughter the chickens while they are suspended upside down and moving on a conveyer belt.
As you can see from Mr Findlayson's reply to me, the question of free-range table birds is now being considered by County Fair.
If you were to revoke the Halaal certificates for broilers and battery eggs, I believe that in so doing, you would be heralding in a new era in animal welfare. Few other bodies of people have the influence you have to do this.
Please, in the name of humanity and out of respect for the creations of God, I urge to consider whether the power you have to change the misery should not be put into force.
Yours sincerely,
Louise van der Merwe
Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said that a word of wisdom from even a non-Muslim is the lost property of the Mu’min. O Muslims! You are urged to abandon your consumption of haraam maitah – carrion chickens – fraudulently halaalized by SANHA’s haraam ‘halaal’ certificates. The haraam ‘halaalizers’ are fully aware that the Tasmiyah is not recited on millions of chickens and that millions of dead chickens are slaughtered and marketed as ‘halaal’. The craving and lust for money has blinded the haraam ‘halaalizers’.
THE FOUL TRUTH ABOUT CHICKEN
By Felicity Lawrence (24 March 2005)
“…..I had been smuggled into a large chicken factory by a meat hygiene inspector who was worried about standards in the poultry industry. We were gazing into a hot-water tank into which the dead birds were being dipped at the rate of 180 a minute, to scald the skin and loosen the feathers before they went into the plucking machine. (180 per minute is the normal line speed at which the chickens are maimed and killed by the supposed reciters of Tasmiyah – The Majlis)
It was 3 pm and as at many factories the water was only changed once a day. It was a brown soup of faeces and feather fragments at 52 C the perfect temperature for salmonella and campylobacter organisms to survive and cross-contaminate the birds, the hygiene inspector pointed out.
We mobbed on to the whirring rubber fingers which remove the feathers. Plucking machines exert considerable pressure on the carcass, which tends to squeeze faecal matter out on to the production line. It only takes one bird colonised with campylobacter to infect the rest. The bacteria count goes up tenfold after this point….
We went outside. There towering stacks of birds in crates, delivered earlier in the day by a procession of juggernauts, were being given a chance to calm down before being shunted into the slaughter room.
THE HORRENDOUS SUFFERING OF THE CHICKENS YOU DEVOUR AND THE DISEASES YOU WILL CONTRACT
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
“… I would like to suggest that a surprising number of your readers will not want a chicken "in their pot" at all once they realise what 40 years of genetic engineering to produce a fast-growing, meaty bird, has done to the chicken itself.
The chickens (broilers) we buy in the supermarkets lived their short six weeks of life stacked together in sheds at a stocking density of 17 to 18 per square metre. Of the 400 million broilers reared annually in South Africa, 4 to 8 per cent is removed from the flock early and turned into pet food because their legs simply cannot support their unnaturally overgrown bodies. Researchers at Bristol University say the reason why up to 90% of flocks suffer from leg problems, some being so crippled that they are only able to shuffle along the floor using their wings in a paddling movement, is because of man's "overzealous" breeding of meaty birds. British poultry expert Professor John Webster said in The Guardian: "Broilers are the only livestock that are in chronic pain for the last 20% of their lives."
According to the Farmer's Weekly (Jan 8, 1993) the broken bones, bruises and breast blisters sustained by these chickens have become a serious problem. According to the article, overseas studies show that the catching crew (which loads them up for transport to the abattoir) is responsible for 40 percent of the damage.
Recent research at Bristol University gives further chilling results: of the broiler carcasses which arrived dead at the processing plants, 51% had died from heart failure and 17% had suffered from ascites (an accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity, with enlargement of the heart, liver and kidneys.)
Disturbingly the investigation found haemorrhage associated with dislocated or broken hips accounted for 27% of the deaths and in a large number of cases the femur had penetrated right into the abdomen. Researchers believe that the catching and carrying of birds by one leg is conducive to dislocation of the hip.
Another area of grave concern is the suffering endured by the broiler chicken breeding stock which have to be kept on severely restricted rations in order to limit their growth rate. The need for restricted feeding stems from the fact that the poultry industry has bred a bird which grows extremely fast and is primarily intended to live for only 6 - 7 weeks. After that it is too heavy to be viable unless on severely restricted rations. 16 000 signatures of the British public protesting this very facet of broiler production were presented recently to the Director General of the British Poultry Meat Federation Ltd.
As for the broiler being "healthy and nutritious", one cannot help but doubt that. They are fed an antibiotic (such as zinc bacitracin) which acts as a growth stimulant, and a coccidiostat (such as Amprol). The need for a coccidiostat arises because the litter on which they are reared becomes highly contaminated with droppings since it is not changed till the next batch of broilers is brought in. These conditions lead to the chicks developing coccidiosis, a disease which causes damage to the intestinal lining, reducing appetite and the normal absorption of food. The wisdom of feeding antibiotics to farm animals has been repeatedly called into question in medical journals in Britain and America. Scientists have warned that antibiotic resistant disease organisms have emerged because of the overuse of antibiotics on farm animals, putting human health at risk (Veterinary Record 124,538E).
I believe the suffering of this animal can not be justified in the name of food production.”
BRUTALITY OF THE HARAAM CHICKEN INDUSTRY
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
The SPCA National Council of Southern Africa has spelled it out to the Southern African Poultry Association (SAPA) that the disposal of unwanted chicks by means of drowning or suffocation is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This has been agreed to by the industry. Up till now millions of unwanted male chicks have been drowned soon after hatching or thrown into barrels to smother beneath the ones thrown on top. Grade 2 females have been dealt the same fate. Hundreds of thousands more which are late in hatching or are weak, are left to die of cold on the hatching trays.
According to overseas research, death by drowning is prolonged, taking between 90 and 120 seconds to occur.
THE DISEASED HARAAM SANHA- CERTIFIED CARRION YOU EAT
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
"Diseases are running rampant in poultry houses worldwide, according to disclosures at the recently held World Veterinary Poultry Congress in Sydney, Australia. Considering that 40 percent of the meat eaten in the world today comes from poultry, consumers need to seriously reconsider whether the promotion of mass produced chicken meat and eggs as "healthy" can possibly be valid.
A lengthy report on the Congress is to be found in the October 1993 issue of the British magazine, Poultry World. According to this report, most of the diseases are viral. To use the words of one delegate to the Congress: "Viruses have been having a field day, with the world's poultry industry acting as their hosts."
Apart from the more familiar diseases of salmonella, campylobacter and listeria, the world's poultry houses are, according to the article, also plagued by: "egg drop syndrome, runting and stunting, very virulent Gumboro disease, acute Marek's infection (Marek's disease is a form of cancer), turkey RHINOTRACHEITIS, swollen head syndrome, infectious bronchitisvariants and so on.'
The report continues: 'On top of this there are a growing number of completely new viruses whose significance in relation to disease is virtually unknown.
"What we now have is an extremely complex situation in which poultry are affected with the 'old' viruses, more virulent variants of these, 'new' pathogenic viruses and finally those which are an unknown quantity."
According to the report, vaccination can never be the entire answer and pleas were made at the congress for the industry to do more about basic hygiene measures, since without these no eradication policy can finally succeed.
Alarmingly, a new area of serious concern is the non-viraldiseases which are linked to man's over-zealous pursuit of rapid growth in broiler chickens and turkeys.
Especially noteworthy among these diseases, says the article, are a variety of skeletal disorders, acute death syndrome and ascites syndrome associated with perirenal haemorrhage and also spontaneous cardiomyopathy.
A ray of hope is given by Dr Nigel Horrox, veterinarian and editor of the British publication International Hatchery Practice. In a recent editorial he suggested that multinationals may soon tire of investing big money in an industry which has become as risky as the poultry industry. (Marek's disease alone has been reported in the UK to have caused up to 50% mortality in some broiler flocks). In the meantime, what an unforgiveable price the chicken is paying for human greed and ignorance of the simple truth that fresh air, exercise and freedom from unrelenting stress are the basic components of good health for all of creation. No one knows yet the price the consumer pays for eating the meat and eggs of diseased poultry."
SAGACIOUS COUNSEL BY A NON-MUSLIM ORGANIZATION FOR THE JAMIATUL ULAMA BODIES AND THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY AT LARGE
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Almost 15 years ago – in the year 1993 – a non-Muslim, Mrs L van der Merwe, the Founder of the animal rights organization, Humanity For Hens, in her struggle to alleviate the horrendous plight of the brutalized battery chickens, wrote imploringly to the then Jamiatul Ulama Natal and Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal, as follows:
“In view of the above, it would seem to me that the issuing of Halaal certificates for the products of such cruelty contradicts the spirit of Islam’s teachings.”
In fact, it does not contradict only the spirit of Islam’s teachings. It is in violent contradiction with the very letter of the Sacred Law of Allah Azza Wa Jal Who has made Fardh kindness and mercy to even animals. The non-Muslim lady, continuing with her counsel of wisdom to the senior Ulama of the then two Jamiats, says in her letter:
“I understand that Islam prohibits cruelty to animals and that the Prophet of Islam stressed kindness to animals. In addition, it is my understanding that according to Islamic law it is not permissible to slaughter the chickens while they are suspended upside down and moving on a conveyor belt. If you were to revoke the Halaal certificates for broilers and battery eggs, I believe that in so doing, you would be heralding in a new era in animal welfare. Few other bodies of people have the influence you have to do this.
“Please, in the name of humanity and out of respect for the creation of God, I urge you to consider whether the power you have to change the misery should not be put into force.”
SANHA! MOLVIS! HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME! A NON-MUSLIM LADY HAS SURPASSED YOU IN HER UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM AND THE PURPORT OF THE AHADITH OF RASULULLAH (sallallahu alayhi wasallam).
We reproduce hereunder the full letter of Humanity For Hens. Perchance it may exercise a salubrious effect on your hardened conscience which has become incorribly darkened and corrupted with your halaalizing of carrion and horrendous brutality to Allah’s makhlooq.
HUMANITY FOR HENS
(Fighting the cruelties of the intensive poultry industry)
23 April 1993 P. O. Box 843
Kuils River
Tel. (021) 903 6216 7580
Jamiatul Ulama (Natal)
379 Pine Street Durban
4001
Dear Sirs,
A large number of Muslim people have contacted me querying whether the broiler chickens featured in this organisations' February 1993 Newsletter, Page 2, are in fact the same as are to be found in the supermarkets. On hearing that this is indeed so, many of them express concern that Halaal certificates are being issued for animals which have suffered so horribly in their lifetimes.
The extent of suffering in the poultry industry today is, in our opinion, indefensible. In regard to the table birds one buys at the supermarkets, please see the article on Page 2 as mentioned in the paragraph above, entitled "Update on Broilers" and also the letter written by me to Mr David Findlayson, Managing Director of County Fair and his reply. A similar letter was written to Rainbow Chickens but no reply has been received yet.
The plight of laying hens in batteries is different but just as horrific. These creatures are confined for the entire year of their laying lives in a space allowance per hen which is 25% less than an A4 sheet of paper. Their frustration is such that they have to be debeaked in order to prevent them from killing each other. They never see the sunshine, a blade of grass or even the soil. On removal from their cages, they face the terrors of the cull farms. Please see the middle page of the February 1993 Newsletter for a veterinary perspective on the laying hen.
Other Newsletters are enclosed for your interest and should you be interested in the following videotapes, I will send them at no cost to yourselves; one is of a BBC programme entitled "Fast Life in the Food Chain" which features the horrific plight of animals, such as broilers, caught up in intensive systems. The other video is called "Hidden Suffering"! Although it is made in Britain, the depiction of battery farming in the videos applies equally to this country.
Duck, goose and turkey farming in the video apply to South Africa only in the sense that most of these products are imported from intensive systems as shown in the video.
In view of the above, it would seem to me that the issuing of Halaal certificates for the products of such cruelty contradicts the spirit of Islam's teachings.
I understand that Islam prohibits cruelty to animals and that the Prophet of Islam stressed kindness to animals. In addition, it is my understanding that according to Islamic law it is not permissible to slaughter the chickens while they are suspended upside down and moving on a conveyer belt.
As you can see from Mr Findlayson's reply to me, the question of free-range table birds is now being considered by County Fair.
If you were to revoke the Halaal certificates for broilers and battery eggs, I believe that in so doing, you would be heralding in a new era in animal welfare. Few other bodies of people have the influence you have to do this.
Please, in the name of humanity and out of respect for the creations of God, I urge to consider whether the power you have to change the misery should not be put into force.
Yours sincerely,
Louise van der Merwe
Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said that a word of wisdom from even a non-Muslim is the lost property of the Mu’min. O Muslims! You are urged to abandon your consumption of haraam maitah – carrion chickens – fraudulently halaalized by SANHA’s haraam ‘halaal’ certificates. The haraam ‘halaalizers’ are fully aware that the Tasmiyah is not recited on millions of chickens and that millions of dead chickens are slaughtered and marketed as ‘halaal’. The craving and lust for money has blinded the haraam ‘halaalizers’.
THE FOUL TRUTH ABOUT CHICKEN
By Felicity Lawrence (24 March 2005)
“…..I had been smuggled into a large chicken factory by a meat hygiene inspector who was worried about standards in the poultry industry. We were gazing into a hot-water tank into which the dead birds were being dipped at the rate of 180 a minute, to scald the skin and loosen the feathers before they went into the plucking machine. (180 per minute is the normal line speed at which the chickens are maimed and killed by the supposed reciters of Tasmiyah – The Majlis)
It was 3 pm and as at many factories the water was only changed once a day. It was a brown soup of faeces and feather fragments at 52 C the perfect temperature for salmonella and campylobacter organisms to survive and cross-contaminate the birds, the hygiene inspector pointed out.
We mobbed on to the whirring rubber fingers which remove the feathers. Plucking machines exert considerable pressure on the carcass, which tends to squeeze faecal matter out on to the production line. It only takes one bird colonised with campylobacter to infect the rest. The bacteria count goes up tenfold after this point….
We went outside. There towering stacks of birds in crates, delivered earlier in the day by a procession of juggernauts, were being given a chance to calm down before being shunted into the slaughter room.
THE HORRENDOUS SUFFERING OF THE CHICKENS YOU DEVOUR AND THE DISEASES YOU WILL CONTRACT
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
“… I would like to suggest that a surprising number of your readers will not want a chicken "in their pot" at all once they realise what 40 years of genetic engineering to produce a fast-growing, meaty bird, has done to the chicken itself.
The chickens (broilers) we buy in the supermarkets lived their short six weeks of life stacked together in sheds at a stocking density of 17 to 18 per square metre. Of the 400 million broilers reared annually in South Africa, 4 to 8 per cent is removed from the flock early and turned into pet food because their legs simply cannot support their unnaturally overgrown bodies. Researchers at Bristol University say the reason why up to 90% of flocks suffer from leg problems, some being so crippled that they are only able to shuffle along the floor using their wings in a paddling movement, is because of man's "overzealous" breeding of meaty birds. British poultry expert Professor John Webster said in The Guardian: "Broilers are the only livestock that are in chronic pain for the last 20% of their lives."
According to the Farmer's Weekly (Jan 8, 1993) the broken bones, bruises and breast blisters sustained by these chickens have become a serious problem. According to the article, overseas studies show that the catching crew (which loads them up for transport to the abattoir) is responsible for 40 percent of the damage.
Recent research at Bristol University gives further chilling results: of the broiler carcasses which arrived dead at the processing plants, 51% had died from heart failure and 17% had suffered from ascites (an accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity, with enlargement of the heart, liver and kidneys.)
Disturbingly the investigation found haemorrhage associated with dislocated or broken hips accounted for 27% of the deaths and in a large number of cases the femur had penetrated right into the abdomen. Researchers believe that the catching and carrying of birds by one leg is conducive to dislocation of the hip.
Another area of grave concern is the suffering endured by the broiler chicken breeding stock which have to be kept on severely restricted rations in order to limit their growth rate. The need for restricted feeding stems from the fact that the poultry industry has bred a bird which grows extremely fast and is primarily intended to live for only 6 - 7 weeks. After that it is too heavy to be viable unless on severely restricted rations. 16 000 signatures of the British public protesting this very facet of broiler production were presented recently to the Director General of the British Poultry Meat Federation Ltd.
As for the broiler being "healthy and nutritious", one cannot help but doubt that. They are fed an antibiotic (such as zinc bacitracin) which acts as a growth stimulant, and a coccidiostat (such as Amprol). The need for a coccidiostat arises because the litter on which they are reared becomes highly contaminated with droppings since it is not changed till the next batch of broilers is brought in. These conditions lead to the chicks developing coccidiosis, a disease which causes damage to the intestinal lining, reducing appetite and the normal absorption of food. The wisdom of feeding antibiotics to farm animals has been repeatedly called into question in medical journals in Britain and America. Scientists have warned that antibiotic resistant disease organisms have emerged because of the overuse of antibiotics on farm animals, putting human health at risk (Veterinary Record 124,538E).
I believe the suffering of this animal can not be justified in the name of food production.”
BRUTALITY OF THE HARAAM CHICKEN INDUSTRY
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
The SPCA National Council of Southern Africa has spelled it out to the Southern African Poultry Association (SAPA) that the disposal of unwanted chicks by means of drowning or suffocation is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This has been agreed to by the industry. Up till now millions of unwanted male chicks have been drowned soon after hatching or thrown into barrels to smother beneath the ones thrown on top. Grade 2 females have been dealt the same fate. Hundreds of thousands more which are late in hatching or are weak, are left to die of cold on the hatching trays.
According to overseas research, death by drowning is prolonged, taking between 90 and 120 seconds to occur.
THE DISEASED HARAAM SANHA- CERTIFIED CARRION YOU EAT
(Reproduced from Humanity For Hens Newsletter)
"Diseases are running rampant in poultry houses worldwide, according to disclosures at the recently held World Veterinary Poultry Congress in Sydney, Australia. Considering that 40 percent of the meat eaten in the world today comes from poultry, consumers need to seriously reconsider whether the promotion of mass produced chicken meat and eggs as "healthy" can possibly be valid.
A lengthy report on the Congress is to be found in the October 1993 issue of the British magazine, Poultry World. According to this report, most of the diseases are viral. To use the words of one delegate to the Congress: "Viruses have been having a field day, with the world's poultry industry acting as their hosts."
Apart from the more familiar diseases of salmonella, campylobacter and listeria, the world's poultry houses are, according to the article, also plagued by: "egg drop syndrome, runting and stunting, very virulent Gumboro disease, acute Marek's infection (Marek's disease is a form of cancer), turkey RHINOTRACHEITIS, swollen head syndrome, infectious bronchitisvariants and so on.'
The report continues: 'On top of this there are a growing number of completely new viruses whose significance in relation to disease is virtually unknown.
"What we now have is an extremely complex situation in which poultry are affected with the 'old' viruses, more virulent variants of these, 'new' pathogenic viruses and finally those which are an unknown quantity."
According to the report, vaccination can never be the entire answer and pleas were made at the congress for the industry to do more about basic hygiene measures, since without these no eradication policy can finally succeed.
Alarmingly, a new area of serious concern is the non-viraldiseases which are linked to man's over-zealous pursuit of rapid growth in broiler chickens and turkeys.
Especially noteworthy among these diseases, says the article, are a variety of skeletal disorders, acute death syndrome and ascites syndrome associated with perirenal haemorrhage and also spontaneous cardiomyopathy.
A ray of hope is given by Dr Nigel Horrox, veterinarian and editor of the British publication International Hatchery Practice. In a recent editorial he suggested that multinationals may soon tire of investing big money in an industry which has become as risky as the poultry industry. (Marek's disease alone has been reported in the UK to have caused up to 50% mortality in some broiler flocks). In the meantime, what an unforgiveable price the chicken is paying for human greed and ignorance of the simple truth that fresh air, exercise and freedom from unrelenting stress are the basic components of good health for all of creation. No one knows yet the price the consumer pays for eating the meat and eggs of diseased poultry."
