Said Mutlu: Permitted foods in Islam are much more than the forbidden

“We, the Muslims, are convinced, and I do hope that all believers too, that Allah or God no matter how we call our Creator, Maker, He created the man as the supreme creation of the universe. He created everything in it and in particular on the earth to be for the benefit of the man as a supreme creation”, said Said Mutlu, imam of the town of Sarnitsa, during the fifth national conference of the National Council of the Religious Communities in Bulgaria (NCRCB) held in cooperation with the Institute for Inter-religious and Ethno-cultural dialogue, under the Patronage of the President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The scientific conference under the title “The relationship God, Man, Environment” was held from 16^th till 18^th of October in Varshets with the participation of representatives of the six traditional religious denominations in Bulgaria. Grand Mufti’s Office was represented by the Deputy Grand Mufti Birali Birali and the Secretary General Ahmed Ahmedov.

In his report “Halal food in Islam” the imam of the town of Sarnitsa also said that the Almighty has not left us in the lurch and delineated boundaries and norms for us according to which we should act. In the Holy Qur’an and the righteous sunnah (tradition) of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are clearly outlined the allowed and the forbidden for the Muslims things, including the allowed and the forbidden foods from the Islamic point of view. They are called halal – for the allowed and haram – for the forbidden foods.

“The Almighty orders us in the Qur’an: “O mankind! Eat of that which is lawful and wholesome in the earth, i.e. useful, because under “wholesome” in the Qur’an it is understand allowed and useful. Our belief is that everything which is created for the man on earth is to be of use for him, beside what is explicitly forbidden’, said the imam of Sarnitsa.

According to him all favors which Allah created for the people are allowed, beside those which are explicitly forbidden, such as the opiates and the pork meat. But the forbidden are much less than those which are permitted. Food and drinks which are forbidden in Islam are divided into categories:

Animals that originally are considered unclean. To this category belong pig, dog and carrion. With regard to this Allah says: “He hath forbidden you only carrion, and blood, and swineflesh, and that which hath been immolated to (the name of) any other than Allah”.

Animals which are forbidden for other reasons. These are animals that are originally permitted, but are slaughtered in the name of other, and not in the Name of Allah. Or have died in a way which makes then forbidden for consumption, for example an animal which is beaten, choked to death, perished in a fall, stabbed or from which a wild animal had eaten.

With regard to this in the Qur’an, chapter Al-Maeda, verse 3, is said: “Forbidden unto you (for food) are carrion and blood and swine-flesh, and that which hath been dedicated unto any other than Allah, and the strangled, and the dead through beating, and the dead through falling from a height, and that which hath been killed by (the goring of) horns, and the devoured of wild beasts, saving that which ye make lawful (by the death-stroke)…”

To the third category of the forbidden animals belong pray animals, which have canine teeth, animals that tear their pray – lions, tigers, wolves, etc. To them are considered also birds which have beak with which they tear their pray, such as eagle, falcon and others. It is also forbidden to eat an animal which consumes dirt.

Bulgaria is the first European country with the highest share of Muslims

“As a full member of the European Union Bulgaria became the first European country with the highest relative share of Muslim population, which officially recognized the legal status of Islam as an officially registered religious denomination”, said the sociologist Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veselin Bosakov during the conference of the National Council of the Religious Communities in Bulgaria (NCRCB).

According to him the transformations in the Islamic religious culture evaluated in the context of the global debate for compatibility between Islam and democracy change the scope of the idea of tolerance in the Bulgarian society.

In his report “Transformations in the Islamic religious culture in Bulgaria” Assoc. Prof. Bosakov gave the definition of several basic concepts:

Homogenization: under homogenization we understand the achievement of such status in the relations in the community where the internal solidarity and the feeling of similarity dominate above the external definiteness imposed by the opposition against the other community.

Consolidation: we understand consolidation as integration against or because of a concrete community defined as a threat. The consolidation became senseless when there is a change of the external for the community conditions, i.e. the consolidation is situational characteristics of the community in the conditions of negative interactions.

Leniency: I understand leniency as a statistic quality limiting the possibility for setting and maintenance of a wider range of social interactions. It is in the basis for generating conflict potential in the intergroup relations, especially when it corresponds also to the social and economic distances. Leniency supposes the existence of a contact which is not accepted as a natural, but as a part from external compulsion against the field of possible choices. Often leniency is mixed with tolerance and is presented as such when the bearers of different ethno-religious signs are out of the field of mutual contacts.

Tolerance: we understand tolerance as the possibility of accepting the difference based on the idea for one’s own cultural measure. It is in the basis of the understanding for the significance of one’s presence in the social space and inevitably suggests the possibility of the other’s difference. Tolerance is a dynamic quality which supposes possibility for expanding the social communication. It is an attitude for openness and equal communication determined by the opinion of the multiculturalism. Tolerance is positive quality of the social relations involving the preservation and confirmation of the one’s cultural measure as a reason for the existence of the difference.

Neighborhood: we understand neighborhood not only as a direct contact and spatial proximity but also as social networking, social network from social practices compensating the tension between the ethno-religious communities and also a definer of the daily life with its semantic importance and symbolic luminance. Neighborhood is a fundamental structural category without the help of which the structure of the social space cannot be described and understood.  

Values: we understand values as visibility of fulfilled favors, perspectives, prosperity. Values legitimize and cultivate the social activities; every value compared to the empirical and factual reality is ideal and is not subjected to the power of the natural immense and this means that every value is a matter of a choice. The realized value is experienced as a favor.

In the scientific conference participated with reports on different topics related to religion and representatives of the other traditional religious denominations.