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Disease Leaves Muslims
Without Lamb
Article Date:
March 03, 2001
BRADFORD,
England (AP) - The Saqib Halal Meat shop should
have been bustling with customers buying ritually
slaughtered lambs for the upcoming Muslim holiday.
After
all, the three-day Eid-al-Adha feast - the most
important of the Islamic calendar - begins Monday
morning, but by Thursday there were no lambs for
sale at the corner butcher shop.
Saqib
Halal Meat, like dozens of other such butchers
in the large Muslim center of Bradford, have been
cut off from their meat suppliers because a widespread
outbreak of highly contagious foot and mouth disease
has brought a clampdown on the movement and slaughter
of livestock.
It is
unlikely that Muslims in Britain and Northern
Ireland will have the traditional slaughtered
lamb for Eid-al-Adha, which commemorates Abraham's
sacrifice of a ram to God instead of his son.
The celebration, which is sometimes called Eid-al-Kabir,
centers on the slaughter of a sheep or other animal.
Foot
and mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals,
including sheep. Because the virus that causes
it is so contagious, more than 7,000 animals have
been killed and burned in an effort to halt its
spread. Hundreds of farms have been shut down
and the transport of animals is banned.
``With
Eid coming, we are having a big problem with meat,''
said Saif Urrehman, a butcher at Saqib Halal Meat.
``We need a lot of sheep and lamb and there is
none.''
Because
of Islamic law, the meat has to be slaughtered
at a licensed Muslim slaughterhouse. Frozen grocery
store lamb would not be an acceptable substitution,
said Masood Khawaja, president of the Halal Food
Authority.
Khawaja
said British politicians have offered a possible
relaxation of the ban in areas not affected by
the disease for the festival. But even if the
ban were lifted this weekend, there would not
be enough time for the Muslim slaughterhouses
to prepare the lamb for Monday morning, he said.
``We
do not wish to make an exemption for the Muslim
community only and we want this horrible, tragic
disease to be eradicated,'' Khawaja said. ``So
to avoid any hassle, we are asking Muslims to
send equivalent money that would be spent on the
sacrifice to underprivileged countries.
``Catastrophes
have to be looked at from an angle. If the sacrifice
cannot be done in the U.K., it can be done elsewhere.''
The
foot and mouth crisis also is affecting Jewish
residents. By Wednesday, all kosher killing of
cattle and sheep in Britain had stopped because
of the ban on animal movement.
In the
Saqib Halal Meat freezer, two lambs purchased
before the quarantine hung above boxes of fresh
chicken parts. Urrehman said usually there are
five or six lambs in the walk-in freezer.
``Every
butcher is upset because sales are going down
and no one is buying expensive meat,'' Urrehman
said.
At Tasawar
Ali Halal Butchers down the street, young men
in bloodstained aprons stood at cutting boards
piled high with pale chicken parts. The glass
meat case in the small, cramped shop held the
last of the sheep and lamb.
``After
today, we will have no more left. No meat. Nothing,''
said Khan Shukat, a butcher at the store, on Thursday
afternoon. ``We are losing money. We are losing
everything.''
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