We should not accept animal cruelty in the name of religious toleration

ADAM JAMES POLLOCK

There are few ways to pass the time that are more entertaining than having a slightly intoxicated chat with a taxi driver. Sometimes you end up debating about a sport you don’t watch, other times you egg them on with questions like “so how fast can this actually go?”, a slight awareness of your own mortality lingering in the background on both occasions.

On a recent taxi journey to delightfully rural Wicklow from a Dublin city centre restaurant, fuelled by a healthy number of gin and tonics, I got chatting to the driver, a middle-aged man from Lahore, Pakistan, about food. He was sharing recipes for various dishes and commenting on how they are much more delicious than very similar-sounding Indian dishes, and how he has noticed an improvement in the offering of food which he could eat since moving to the country a decade ago.

Asking him to expand on this, he noted that a huge number of takeaways and restaurants in Wicklow and Dublin offer a menu which is entirely halal, even if it isn’t advertised anywhere, making it much easier for him to find places where he and his friends and family can eat. This has clearly made him warm to his adoptive country, but I couldn’t help but feel dismayed at his revelation. For most of us, an increase in halal food isn’t something to be proud of.

Halal meat, for those unfamiliar with it, refers to the requirement in Islamic law for an animal to be killed with a single cut to the throat, severing the windpipe and blood vessels, while the creature remains conscious. No stunning beforehand, no bolt to the skull or electric jolt to render it senseless. A short Bismillah is utter, the throat is cut, and that’s that. Any animal which dies before the blood has drained out is considered not permissible to be consumed. This practice, called dhabihah, is rooted in tradition, codified by Islamic religious texts, and is defended with sincerity by its proponents. But sincerity alone doesn’t make it right.

Britain’s relationship with its animals is a peculiar one, forged over centuries of stubborn practicality and mutual understanding. We’re the nation that gave the world the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1824, the first organisation of its kind, born from a mix of Enlightenment ideas and a very British feeling of having a soft spot for the underdog, or undercows and underhorses in this case. We’re a nation renowned for anthropomorphising animals, seeing our own folly and struggle reflected in them, in everything from Beatrix Potter’s rabbits in waistcoats to Orwell’s pigs plotting revolution. Our countryside is covered with farmers who name their lambs before sending them off to slaughter, as highlighted in the most recent season of Clarkson’s Farm. This is done not out of mere sentimentality but rather as a quiet pact, that although their slaughter is inevitable, by no means should their suffering be, too.

In the UK, laws require that animals must be stunned before slaughter, a change which was legislated in the twentieth century amid animal welfare concerns, in an attempt to make such a death as painless and free from suffering as it could be. An exception is made, however, for religious slaughter, in the case of dhabihah and shechita, its Jewish equivalent, making an allowance for slaughter without stunning if it’s for a particular faith community.

These kinds of religious slaughter are not carried out in small numbers, however. Awal Fuseini, a senior figure at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, told Farmers Weekly in 2024 that 72 per cent of the sheep slaughtered in England and Wales are done according to halal standards, in addition to over 50 per cent of goats slaughtered and a growing number of cattle and poultry, despite Muslims representing a disproportionately low 6.5 per cent of the population.

As a result, a significant proportion of the meat from these animals enters the hospitality supply chain, where there is no requirement to notify consumers in restaurants or takeaways if the meat is halal. You might, for example, visit your local Indian takeaway and order a delicious rogan josh, only to inadvertently be eating halal meat because they don’t have to inform you of the slaughter practice. You may probably be eating halal meat there, too, as 80 per cent of Indian restaurants are actually Bangladeshi-owned, a nation where Islam is the state religion, and as a result would only buy and cook halal meat anyway.

Science doesn’t soothe the conscience, either. Studies have suggested that animals are conscious for a period of time after their throats are cut during halal slaughter, and it is very likely that they are suffering intensely during this time. A 2004 report by the Farm Animal Welfare Council, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, highlights that sheep are conscious for between 5-7 seconds after the cut, 3-5 seconds for goats, 22-40 seconds for adult cattle, and anywhere between 10-120 seconds for calves, with this time variance being due to anatomical differences in the animals’ bodies. Comparatively, when cattle are stunned with captive-bolt pistols, studies have shown that there is zero brain response activity afterwards.

The UK’s Halal Monitoring Committee, a regulatory body which certifies much of Britain’s halal meat, insists that such slaughter is “swift and humane” when done right, but even then it is a flimsy peg to hang one’s hat on. I have had friends who have worked in abattoirs. The reality of them — high-speed lines, human error, the sheer volume of animals — means precision is not and can not always be guaranteed. A nick instead of a clean slice, a dull blade, a lack of concentration and those 5-7 seconds can stretch into something grimmer. I paint a dark picture, but this is the reality of such meat production in the UK.

Earlier this March, we saw the horrors of a halal abattoir unfold in the media as secret camera footage showed severe mistreatment of sheep by the workers there. The animals were tortured, being slammed onto the concrete floors while recordings of wolf howls were played, terrifying them. In several cases, the animals’ throats were inadequately cut, allowing them to run around for several minutes while they bled out. Some sheep were visibly still conscious as workers began to cut their legs off, while workers laughed and mocked the sheep who were struggling after the botched slaughters. There is nothing about this that is compatible with life in this country.

Halal slaughter, for all its tradition, feels like a cut too deep

I think of the kind of food culture which we tend to enjoy as a country, family butchers with decades of experience who will tell you about the pigs he buys from a mate in the next village, fattened on windfall apples, or the beef he sources from a herd that’s grazed the same pasture since his grandfather’s day. There’s a pride there — a sense that the animal’s life, and its end, matters. Halal slaughter, with its insistence on consciousness, feels like a step backwards from that.

It’s not about the Arabic blessing or the distinct foreignness of it which makes this kind of ritual slaughter incompatible with modern Britain; it’s about the refusal to blunt the edge of suffering when we’ve got the tools to do so. Stunning isn’t perfect — sometimes it fails, sometimes it’s botched — but it’s a compromise Britain settled on long ago. Death, yes, but not agony. Britain is a nation that loves its animals, even the ones we eat. Halal slaughter, for all its tradition, feels like a cut too deep, not just into flesh, but into the quiet pact we’ve made with those animals who feed us.

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This article (The harms of halal slaughter) was created and published by The Critic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Adam James Pollock

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