Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem
assalamu alaikum
Sh. Hamza Yusuf on eating meat from the audio tape "The Science of
Shari'ah"
Meat is not a necessity in Shari'ah, and in the old days most Muslims
used to eat meat, if they were wealthy, like middle class—once a week
on Friday. If they were poor—on the Eids."
"So traditionally Muslims were semi-vegetarians. The Prophet was, I
mean, technically, the Prophet (SAWS) was in that category. He was
not a meat-eater. Most of his meals did not have meat in them. And
the proof of that is clearly in the Muwatta—when Sayyidina Umar
says, 'Beware of meat, because it has an addiction like the addiction
of wine.' And the other hadith in the Muwatta—there is a chapter
called 'Bab al-Laham,' the chapter of laham, the chapter of meat.
Both are from Sayyidina Umar. And Umar, during his khilafa,
prohibited people from eating meat two days in a row. He only allowed
them to eat [it] every other day. And the khalifa has that right to
do that. He did not let people eat meat every day … he saw one man
eating meat every day, and he said to him, 'Every time you get hungry
you go out and buy meat? Right? In other words, every time your nafs
wants meat, you go out and buy it?' He said, 'Yeah, Amir al-Mumineen,
ana qaram,' which in Arabic, 'qaram' means 'I love meat'—he's a
carnivore, he loves meat. And Sayyidina Umar said, 'It would be
better for you to roll up your tummy a little bit so that other
people can eat.'"
"Now Umar, if there was a prophet after the Prophet, it would have
been Umar. And that is really verging on prophecy, that statement.
Because if you study the modern meat industry, you will find out that
a lot of the famine in the world is a direct result of the
overconsumption of meat in countries like the United States and
Canada and Europe, because the amount of grain needed to produce 1
pound of meat, right, is much greater than the amount you need to
produce grain itself. And beef in particular—I really recommend
Rifkin's book Beyond Beef. It's an extraordinary book. And it's
interesting 'Baqara' is also a chapter of the Qur'an ('kill the
cow'), because beef-eating societies just have massive impact on the
environment, on natural resources, on all these things. And
traditionally the Muslims were not cow-eaters, they were sheep and
lamb [-eaters] when they did eat meat."
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i am trying to cut back on my meat-intake at the moment. Instead of eating meat 7 days a week,i've cut back to 3. lol.
