food and religion?

Question

Do Mulslims view pork as evil? I read somewhere that they did. Malcolm 'X' called the pig a graft between a rat, a dog, and a cat. Someone help me out.

Answer 1

islam only forbids pork it doesnt see it as evil...

more about this....


Food and drink have direct effect on our health. That is why Islam has prescribed regulations about our food and drink. It lays great emphasis on our physical as well as moral health, because both of these are equally important for a healthy society. The abstention from eating pork is one of the steps taken by Islam to practise hygiene and to attain purity of soul.

Islam, for the cultivation of inner faculties, insists upon the cleanliness of body and the purification of soul through Salaat (prayers) Zikr (remembrance of Allah) and other devotional duties. Islam teaches us how to attain the virtues and how to give up bad habits because both good and bad grow in the man according to his upbringing, education and environment.

A human being has natural desires: food, sleep and sex being the three primary ones. He has also natural emotions: sorrow, happiness, love, fear, disgust and avarice etc. Islam doesn't recommend the complete abrogation of these impulses but offers a method of controlling them through religious education and discipline.

The prohibition of eating pork in Islam is relevant in this context. There is a saying in English that "a man becomes what he eats." According to physicians and medical experts, pork is a harmful diet. Consumption of swine-flesh creates lowliness in character and destroys moral and spiritual faculties in a man.

Body & Soul
The life of a man is a compound of body and soul. Anything, which is harmful for the body, hurts the soul as well. Consumption of swine-flesh reduces the feeling of shame and as such the standard of modesty. Those nations, which consume pork habitually, have a low standard of morality with the result that virginity, chastity and bashfulness are becoming a thing of the past in Europe today. The number of unwed mothers is on the increase despite the use of pills and other contraceptives.

According to a report, 60 to 70% girls in Sweden become mothers before marriage. The formula of "skin to skin is no sin" is having its toll but there is hardly and feeling of shame and remorse over the end-result. Since the European nations have become addicted to wine and pork, sexual freedom with all its attendant evils has got ingrained in their culture. Consequently, homosexuality has been legalized by the British Parliament.

The Holy Qur'an has prohibited the swine-flesh, hence the Muslims would not dare touch it. The Bible has also forbidden swine-flesh, but Christians disregarded this order and started consuming it. The Europeans now proclaim that pork is a very powerful diet, rich in protein. Some of them further argue that since there is a great scarcity of food-stuffs in the world and swines are available in abundant quantity, they should be consumed in diet to overcome the food shortage. If this argument is true, why don't they use dog's meat as dogs too are available in plenty? The Europeans perhaps hate the mention of dog's meat in the same way as the Muslims shun pork.

Another wrong notion about swine-flesh is that its consumption lengthens life-span, although this is a pure myth and absurdity. On the contrary, people, who abstain from pork and liquor, have a longer span of life. The Muslims in Central Asia bear a testimony to this truth.

However, in the consumption of flesh Muslims are required to be selective and distinguish between Halaal (Lawful) and Haraam (Unlawful). This step leads automatically to the deeper understanding of the need for the cultivation of a pure human nature. As blood is virtually our life-stream and whatever we consume ultimately affects the blood system, it is, therefore, necessary to exercise choice in the selection of our food and drink as per the requirements of the Shariah.

There are certain foods and drinks specified by Allah, and His Messenger Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) as forbidden. The prohibition of these foods and drinks is not by any means an arbitrary action or an unwarranted decree of Allah. It is the first and foremost a divine intervention in the best interest of man and for his own benefit.

The reasons behind the Divine intervention are numerous. They are of a nature intellectual and spiritual, moral and mental, physical and economic. And the sole purpose is to show man how to develop himself according to an upright course of life in order to be a healthy unit in the structure of the family, then of society and eventually of humanity at large.

Reliable medical doctors and social scientists are able to realize how those foods and drinks forbidden by Islam are harmful and destructive to the human spirit and morality as well as to the physique and moral fibre of man and to verify the benefits of Islamic legislations on the subjects.

The prohibition is based on the aim of the purification of one's nature, because food, when consumed, doesn't merely enter the stomach and intestines and become excreta. It is absorbed and metabolized into the system and circulated to all parts of the human body, including the brain, and this in no small way affects man's nature.

The pig is naturally lazy and indulgent in sex, it is dirty, greedy and gluttonous. It dislikes sunlight and lacks the spirit and will to "fight." It eats almost anything, be it human excreta or anything foul and unwholesome. Amongst all animal flesh, pork is the favoured cradle of harmful germs. Pork also serves as a carrier of diseases to mankind. It is for this reason that its flesh is not suitable for consumption.

Some people have argued that the "modern pig" reared in farms is given only clean foods, therefore, its flesh should be consumable. The answer is that you may feed the pig on clean, wholesome food, but you can't change its nature. It is still a pig. A pig is not a plant and you cannot change it by bud-grafting.


A. Diseases caused by pork and pig.

Parasitic Diseases.
1. Trichinilla spiralis:
It is the most dangerous parasite to man. It is prevailing widely in countries which eat pork but lacking in countries which prohibit pork consumption e.g. Muslim countries.

Dr. Glen shephard wrote the following on the dangers of eating pork in the 31th May, 1952 issue of the Washington Post, Washington:-

"One in six people in the United States of America and Canada have germs in their muscles - trichinosis - from eating pork infected with trichina or trichina - worms, many people so infected, have no symptoms. Most of those who do have, recover very slowly some die, some are reduced to permanent invalids. All were careless pork eaters."

"No one is immune from this disease and there is no cure. Neither anti-biotics nor drugs, nor vaccines affect these tiny deadly worms. Preventing infections is the real answer."

"Fully grown trichina worms are about 1/8" long and about 1/400" board. They remain alive for up to 40 years, curled up in lemon-shaped invisible tiny capsules between muscle fibres".

"When you eat infected meat, those dormant worm capsules are digested but their contents grow into full-sized worms each of which has about 1,500 off-springs. They get into your blood one to two weeks after you have eaten their parents, because many organs can be invaded by the worms, symptoms can resemble those of 50 other diseases. This makes diagnosis difficult."

"Ordinary methods of salting and smoking do not kill those worms; nor can government inspection of meat at packing houses or abattoirs identify all infected pork".

After reading the statement of Dr. Shephard, we can presume that there is no real guarantee of safety, even when eating pork which is not affected by trichina worms. To take pork then, is a gamble with one's health and to put one's life at stake.

2. Taenia solim (Pork tape worm)

Both eggs and larvac (cysticenra) are infective. These worms are only found in pork eaters. The worm may cause malnourishment of the host leading to anaemia, diarrhoea. Toxins produced may have deleterious influence on various systems of the body. In some patients the knowledge that they have such long worm inside their bellies may lead to extreme depression melancholia and digestive disturbances. Cysticercosis means that larvac enter the blood stream then settle down in one or more of the vital organs of the body e.g. brain, liver, lungs or spinal cord. They grow and encapsulate, leading to pressure symptom around, resulting in dangerous diseases.

3. Round worms: e.g. Ascaris, which may lead to digestive disturbances, appendicitis, obstructive jaundice.

4. Hook worms: e.g. Ancylostomiasis, which may lead to anaemia, edema, heart failure or retarded growth (mentally and physically).

5. Schistosoma Japonicum: Bleeding, anaemia and other syndromes. If ova are settled in the brain or spinal cord, paralysis and death may occur.

6. Paragonimes westermaimi: leading to bleeding of the lungs.(Endenve haemoptysis).

7. Faciolepsis buski: (Digestive disturbance is leading to persistent diarrhoea. Generalized edema.

8. Clonorchis sinensis: Chlonorchiasis - obstructive jaundice, liver enlargement.

9. Metastrongylus apri: Causing bronchitis, abscess of the lungs.

10. Giganthorinchus gigas: An anaemia and digestive disorders.

11. Balantidium coli: causing acute dysentry and general weakness.

Other Worms and Parasites in the pig

Bacterial diseases:
1.Tuber-Bacillis (Tuberculosis).
2.Fusiformis necrofurus: Causing foot-rot which is very difficult to heal.
3.Salmonella cholera suis: causing cholera.
4.Paratyphoid
5.Bruceellosis: Acute, subacute and chronic. It may lead to permanent disabilities.
6. Swine Erysipelas: causing Erysipelas in man.

Viral diseases:
1. Smallpox: Pig was a source of infection to man, but now controlled universally.
2. Japanese-B-encephalitis: It was the cause of death of many persons in an epidemic outbreak in Sri Lanka in the year of 1985. Pig was the only source of infection.
3.Western River Virus encephalitis.
4.Russian River encephalitis.
5.Viral myocarditis.
6.Influenza
7. Foot mouth disease.
8. Gastro-enteritis of the new born babies.

Protozoal diseases:
Toxo plasma goundii: causing toxoplasmosis. It is a very dangerous disease. A new born babe of an infected woman may die within few days or weeks after delivery. But if he survives he may develop blindness or deafness. In adults chronic exhaustive fever with enlarged liver and spleen may occur. Pneumonia, myocarditis or cerebro-spinal meningitis may lead to death or madness. The patient may become blind and deaf too.

B. Diseases to biological composition of Pork.

1. Uric acid accumulation. Pig is considered the animal which has a high percentage of uric acid in his flesh. It only excretes 2% of its uric acid in urine, the remainder becomes part of his flesh composition. Pig always feels pain in his joints because of gout. Man excretes about 90% of uric acid in the urine and other animals differ in the ratio of excretion of uric acid.
2. Fats in Pigs: Pork contains more than two and half times fat than mutton or beef. Therefore people who are fond of pork are more obese than others. Cholesterol is higher in their blood which makes them more prone to atherosclerosis cardiovascular accidents and sudden death than others.

3. Indigestion: Other flesh is more digestable than Pork , Mutton or beef remains 2-3 hours in the stomach after eating but Pork remain 4 hours till digested. They may lead to chronic digestive disturbances.
4. Skin diseases: Pimples, boils, cysts are common in pork eaters.
5. Pork encourages the revival of old ailments, fosters Rheumatism and asthma and may lead to sterility. German doctors noticed that the wounded Turkish Muslim soldiers who never eat pork and admitted to hospitals during the European wars were cured in a much shorter time than were German soldiers who eat pork. Therefore they forbade strictly the German soldiers from eating pork during hospitalization. &nbs

Answer 2

I don't know about muslims. I do not eat pork. Anything a pig eats goes directly to the meat in three days. 72 hours. And they eat everything from their own feces to rotten food, even other animals that died. Pork contains retroviruses that survive even very high cooking temperatures. I have been off of pork for almost a year, and feel much better. Check it out at www.naturalcures.com.

Answer 3

A pig is like a garbage disposal. They'll eat anything and as much as you give them. I don't know about Islam, but the Old Testament of the Bible banned pork as being "unclean".

Answer 4

In the restaurant for animism, the food comes to you

Answer 5

No... We just say that they are unclean and not meant to be eaten.

They are still God's (Allah's) creation, why would it be evil?

Answer 6

Not evil, just spiritually unclean.

Answer 7

It is considered to be dirty. After all pigs live in dirt and slop.