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Sacred Rituals and Humane Death

Religion in the Ethics and Politics of Modern Meat

Magfirah Dahlan

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death critically analyzes the civilizing nature of the underlying fundamental concept of “humaneness” in contemporary discourses around modern meat and animal ethics. As religious methods of animal slaughter, such as the halal method in Islam, as well as the practice of religious animal sacrifice, are sometimes categorized as barbaric in recent debates, the civilizing narrative of progress leads supposedly to more humane adaptation of methods and practices of animal curation and slaughter. This volume argues that the shift toward modern meat does not constitute a shift toward less pain and suffering as purported by supporters of contemporary methods, particularly mass agriculture. Rather, it is a shift in what is considered as acceptable versus unacceptable pain and suffering. In this work, the author analyzes the concealment and distancing that characterize modern meat production, uncovering the “acceptable” pain and suffering involved in these procedures heralded as ”progress” and advocating for a retrieval of earlier, tradition-bound practices rooted in religious, cultural, and ethical respect of animals and their important and sacred roles in sacrifice.

Lexington Books

Pages: 108 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-4139-8 • Hardback • October 2019 • $99.00 • (£76.00)

978-1-4985-4140-4 • eBook • October 2019 • $94.00 • (£72.00)

Subjects: Religion / Ethics

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death

Religion in the Ethics and Politics of Modern Meat

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death critically analyzes the civilizing nature of the underlying fundamental concept of “humaneness” in contemporary discourses around modern meat and animal ethics. As religious methods of animal slaughter, such as the halal method in Islam, as well as the practice of religious animal sacrifice, are sometimes categorized as barbaric in recent debates, the civilizing narrative of progress leads supposedly to more humane adaptation of methods and practices of animal curation and slaughter. This volume argues that the shift toward modern meat does not constitute a shift toward less pain and suffering as purported by supporters of contemporary methods, particularly mass agriculture. Rather, it is a shift in what is considered as acceptable versus unacceptable pain and suffering. In this work, the author analyzes the concealment and distancing that characterize modern meat production, uncovering the “acceptable” pain and suffering involved in these procedures heralded as ”progress” and advocating for a retrieval of earlier, tradition-bound practices rooted in religious, cultural, and ethical respect of animals and their important and sacred roles in sacrifice.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 108 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-4139-8 • Hardback • October 2019 • $99.00 • (£76.00)

978-1-4985-4140-4 • eBook • October 2019 • $94.00 • (£72.00)

Subjects: Religion / Ethics

Author

Magfirah Dahlan is full-time faculty in religious studies, philosophy, and political science at Craven Community College. She has published on religious ethics, animal ethics, Islamic food justice, identity politics, and multiculturalism.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Humane Death: the Making of Modern Meat

Chapter 2 Halal Meat: from Permissible Food to Ritual Slaughter

Chapter 3 Ethical Vegetarianism: Civilizing Religion

Chapter 4 Un-Civilizing Meat: Modern Human-Animal Relationship

Chapter 5 The Act of Witnessing: Proximity in Food System

Chapter 6 Animal Sacrifice: Meat and Food Justice

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author

Reviews

Magfirah Dahlan’s Sacred Rituals and Humane Death joins the debate over the question of killing for food in Islam, but instead of repeating the rehearsed question of whether it is possible to build a case for vegetarianism on Islamic grounds, she analyzes and critically assesses the very processes that have led to this question. Paradoxically, these processes—she demonstrates—are rooted in the same civilizing narrative that gave rise to the postdomestic era, with its concealment of animal pain and distancing between humans and other animals. Approaching the subject from this fresh angle, Dahlan’s eye-opening insights enrich the field of animal ethics in Islam and beyond.
— Sarra Tlili, University of Florida

Dahlan contests the commodification that impels secular meat consumption as well as the assumption that halal status depends on the slaughter method alone. She challenges her fellow Muslims to take farm animal diets, housing and flourishing just as seriously while also calling into question the poor animal welfare in so much modern farming. This book launches a two-way critical dialogue that must continue.
— David Grumett, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, University of Edinburgh

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death

Religion in the Ethics and Politics of Modern Meat

Magfirah Dahlan

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death

Religion in the Ethics and Politics of Modern Meat

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