Adecade ago, Mirza Ahmed couldn’t find any fresh meat in Orlando. He knew he wasn’t the only one. Growing up in a small town in Pakistan, Ahmed, 54, came of age in an era before commonplace refrigeration, when lambs and goats were slain before his eyes, to be sold at a butcher’s in the morning and eaten the same night.
After immigrating to the United States he worked at gas stations, reluctantly selling cigarettes and beer, and searching in vain for the tasty meat he remembered from his childhood. “The Muslim community needed clean halal meat. Whatever halal meat was sold here was coming from other places, like Atlanta, Georgia, seven hours away, so it wasn’t real fresh,” he said.
“We didn’t have a place to buy a fresh lamb, get it slaughtered and cleaned, and take it home. And if I was having that problem, how many others had the same problem?” And Ali Meats, a zabiha-halal slaughterhouse on Dean Road, was born. Halal means “permitted” according to Islamic law. “I wanted to do something not prohibited by our religion.
I didn’t want to distribute alcohol and be part of that problem. It was mostly for my mind’s satisfaction. But financially, it’s very good, too,” he said. It’s taste more than faith that draws many of his customers — only about half are Muslim. In fact, they represent a small United Nations. He knows all their preferences: Chinese and Hispanic customers like chicken, Arabs like veal, Indians and Pakistanis like young goats, customers from the Caribbean like mature goats, eastern Europeans like beef. Ahmed, who speaks English, Urdu and Punjabi, as well as Spanish and Danish, has a similarly diverse eightmember crew of Americans, Pakistanis, Mexicans and West Indians.
“People from Romania, Greece, Albania, even Americans, once they have tried halal meat, 90 percent will buy no more meat from the store. We do it the same way, zabiha, the Islamic way, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims. Everyone gets the same meat,” he said. Zabiha-halal meat is slaughtered according to Islamic tradition.
The zabiha method is similar to the shechita (ritual slaughter) practice of Judaism, according to Wikipedia. First, permission is requested from God. Because Muslims believe the soul of every living creature belongs to the Lord, no blood can be shed without His permission. So a Muslim must say bismillahu Allahu akbar — in the name of God, Most Great — before the slaughter. The animal’s eyes and ears must be checked to ensure it is in good health.
Then its throat is cut deeply with a very sharp knife, severing both the jugular vein and carotid artery but not the spinal cord. Animals must never see another animal being killed, or watch the blade being sharpened. Finally, the animal is hanged upside down until the blood is completely drained from its body. Because the brain is starved of blood first, it minimizes the animal’s fear and pain, according to Muslim scholars.
When it feels fear or pain, an animal releases hormones that constrict muscles and arteries; tissues and meat then may contain blood that is full of germs, bacteria and waste material. “We don’t raise the animals for meat or milk. When people try to play God, they make things worse. Our animals are grazing naturally, and they are slaughtered naturally,” Ahmed said.
Zabiha methods, though not immune to controversy in the West, may compare favorably to some modern slaughterhouses, which have been accused of flaying and disemboweling animals that are still alive, to meet production quotas.
Muslims are prohibited from eating pork, carrion or carnivorous animals. About 400 goats, 100 lambs and 40 cows a week pass through Ali Meats, coming from Texas, Virginia and the Carolinas, where they roam on hundreds of acres and feed on grass. Since his slaughterhouse has only about seven acres for grazing, Ahmed has learned to slaughter cows straightaway, or they get lonely and depressed. Now he is preparing for Ramadan, the Muslim lunar month of daylong fasts, which this year falls from Sept. 1-30.
“As people invite each other to iftar (sunset meal) to break the fast, most people eat more meat. More gatherings mean more meat consumption,” he said. Seventy days after the end of Ramadan is Eid al-Adha, the holiday marking the near-sacrifice of the prophet Abraham. In the Quran, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith, but at the last moment, God caused a sheep to appear in his son’s place.
In remembrance, every adult Muslim must sacrifice an animal to divide in thirds — one-third to the poor, one-third to neighbors, and one-third to keep. During the three-day Sacrifice Holiday, about 1,000 animals are slain at Ali Meats.
“Those days are very busy for us. There are only three days to sacrifice, and we are the only (halal slaughterhouse) in Orlando, and we are quite a few Muslims here,” he said. “Our doors are open for anyone to come and see, for satisfaction and peace of mind. It’s happening in front of your eyes. This is the real thing.”
