At Bassam Mahmoud’s restaurant, the meat is prepared according to Muslim dietary law - and a new state law will prevent other restaurants that don’t follow the dietary law from claiming they do.
Some Muslims are allowed to eat foods considered halal, which is slaughtered in a certain way. They never can eat foods considered haram, meaning “forbidden” in Arabic, including drinking alcohol or eating any part of a pig.
“It is very emphasized in the Quran that those two are forbidden,” said Mahmoud, owner of Sultan’s Place, 4790 S. Hagadorn Road.
A bill was passed in February to ensure that no restaurant or food manufacturer falsely identifies a food as halal. This includes advertising or packaging any nonhalal food as halal. Violations of the law are misdemeanors.
Mahmoud said the bill should have passed awhile ago. He said he feels it’s good to punish those who falsely identify themselves as halal vendors when they aren’t.
“The Muslim population in America is more than the population of Jews,” Mahmoud said. “You have to give (Muslims) their rights, and this is one of them.”
When an animal is butchered according to Muslim law, or halal, meaning “lawful” and “legitimate” in Arabic, it meets two slaughtering requirements. The first is that the name of God is mentioned over the animal, such as “by the name of Allah.” The second requirement is that the animal must be killed by cutting the two jugular veins, so all of the blood from the animal is drained.
Jameel Aftab, president of the Muslim Students’ Association at MSU, agrees there should be some sort of reprimand for those who falsely advertise halal food.
“If a restaurant does claim that they serve halal, and if they’re not going to, they shouldn’t claim it,” the psychology senior said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Dale Hull, spokesman for Rep. Gary Woronchak, R-Dearborn, who sponsored the law, said the law was written in the same form as one for kosher foods passed in 1966.
“This is a way to ensure that what people advertise is what’s happening,” Hull said. “There is a kosher law on the books. We just followed the lead of some other states that had implemented it.”
