Khutbas from our Kitchens, again

Urban, immigrant life estranges us from the rest of creation.  We are becoming part of the problem. So let us alter the relations between the built, lived environment and the (mal)functionings of the urban ummah which we see being stripped away from soulfulness and plunged into consumerism.

Khutbas from the Kitchen is an idea, potentially an institution,that intervenes practically in our lives to help embody Islamic principles in our relations with creation, not least the food system, family and social relations. It is as simple as recording short educative videos from eachother’s kitchens about the ethics and values behind what we eat, warts, proverbial kitchen sink and all.

Competing with slow, unjust people over reclaiming the mimbar in the mosque is probably a useful expenditure of some people's energy. It need not distract us from the potential of networking and reimagining our existing networked ummahstuctures to overcome the cultural degradation arising from some of the activities of Islam Channel, PeaceTV, ISB, the Quilliam Foundation, Saudi Arabia/America.

Khutbas from our Kitchens rehonours the domestic, creative, hospitable space. For certain, it is not some kind of come dine with me/ready steady cook/diary of a bad man goes for chicken and chips venture. The objects around this vital room tell stories that are mostly hidden and unmarked. The packet of plain flour tells us of the history and politics of American grain surpluses. The dish rack, which bears a lot of the burden, tells us of steel, geometry and evaporation. Not to be funny or anything, but the kitchen plan itself speaks about the design and food values at the time of the building’s construction.

Kitchen media is interesting, televisions entered a lot of them in the late 80s, but now the direction of travel has reversed and one–to-many communications can be exchanged for more realistic many-to–many relationships. And perhaps the people in them have changed, less learned in some ways (humanity), more so in others (web search).

The kinds of impacts I would anticipate from this collective endeavour include a practical, shared space for learning, ensouling, deciding and creating more Creator-conscious and justice-based patterns of life and consumption.

Awwal Akhir Hai Allah

First and last
not just the point of slaughter to plate

Our goal is not an exhibition of humanity according to an animal welfare ethic devoid of God, its Lordly and set in a Qur'anic sacred ecology

We are talking about life from the farm through to slaughter, distribution, handling, sharing, eating, gratitude and disposal.

There is a recent study of halal certification that includes transcripts of interview with both the HMC and the HFA.

I see why they both exist and what they represent. There is no problem with more standards to convey the important of different values.

So how about Ihsan?

A Halal Chicken returns an angry gaze

The halal chicken took her seat
Amongst the Conference of the Birds.
"Such great accomodation,
But my complaint you haven't heard."

I demand a joint action,
For my kith and my kin,
For these Muslims are collecting,
Great barrels of sin.

At two pounds we are valued,
Beak, feathers and all,
Our flesh is devoured,
Rememberance small.

They say that it is lawful, industrial, clean,
Let's wipe them out with their own damned machines.
Our living rights are curtailed in crates and conveyers,
Optimised, efficient, cheap perverted purveyors.

Claiming diminished,
Responsibility,
Believers come to me,
With tales of colonisation and skullduggery.

I bear witness that there is no creature as abominable as mankind.

[New Word] Chickenomics

Is an ideologically imprinted way of 1) looking at the life of birds, 2) feeling the call of your belle and 3) making a monetary purchase.

Some famous chefs had a go at Tescos 3 years ago, as they introduced £1.99 whole chickens, they took a proposal for higher standards to Tescos shareholders  but only got 10% support. Alas no Jamie Oliver effect. Meanwhile, Chicken Cottage HQ in Croydon expects to make a killing in the economic downturn as people look to spend less on eating out.

Much of the internal conversation withing the integrative community tends to be on the stunning/ non stunning issue. Stunning is an inhuman, cowardly and barbaric modern practice, but as Musalmen we should consider the (de)industrialisation of farming.

Chickenomics is multifaculty.

Fat cats, poets, grandmothers and farmers invited.

Transforming what Halal does in the meat industry

Bismillah..

this is a really important communique in the struggle to transform the halal meat industry. There are several values as well as halal-at-slaughtering-moment.

Halal - Lawful (legal)

Tayyib - Good (ethical)
Rahma - Mercy (insan-ity, a small measure of His Name)
Ihsan - Excellence (quality)


The reason we dont see anything other than halal, is because it alone is getting more industrialised in our technocratic modernity and fetishisation of Allah's Law. Its also a reflection of deep ummahtic distortion.

We resist and salute those that resist the consumerisation of the din and the bewitching of humans away from their role in creation in privaledged partnership with it.

While reducing the quantity of meant we consume we can drive up Real Standards whilst spending the same amount of moolah. The commodification of Creatures of God as meat really goes against dinic notions of life and dignity.

The video below is from Mercy Halal Islamic Slaughter, who sound like they are based in the Americas. In the UK there are a growing number of farms and initiatives who could do with your patronage. There's a facebook group 'ethical slaughter' that hosts several related resources also.



We work with carbon footprints, but the key one that we neglect too often is the arsehole footprint. The arsehole footprint sets of avalances and has repercussions on the spirit.

It's probably time to start talking to butchers and waiters and cooks and restauranters about arseholyness and the options available to them.

Is it from the meat we eat?

Chicken Cottage, please continue,
To imbue, how far I am from true.

That which is lawful and good

That's what we are ordered to eat, and earn. Quranically, repeatedly.

Like in many areas of diasporic ritual practice, we seem to have ourselves convinced of the fiqui side of things, but abandoned the ethics of it. I really want some good meat. Vegetarianism alone is insufficient, I feel it virtuous but liberal abdication. This halal market lock in system needs systematic transformation.

This book on animal welfare by Al Hafiz Al Masri, one time imam of the Woking Mosque is a gem I must get hold of fully. Originally written in 1987, the Islamic Foundation republished it in 2007.

So what of halal (c), is it sufficient?

Its not just about the method of ritual slaughter (which is where a great deal of the whiteous indignation targets it wrath), but the entire end-to-end process including: rearing, husbandry, welfare, slaughter, packing, distribution, retail, disposal and consumption. Modernisation, commodification, urbanisation, migration and economisation seems to have squeezed the spirit our of how we eat.

The Serious Sausage Company  and  Willowbrook Farm are there already. I think the Canadians got there ages ago.

Bi ism Illah, (with)in the names of Allah. Such a beautiful sanctification. Living in the bi.

Wandering around central with some lovers recently I felt angsty at having just attended an intracommunity dialogue with Tariq Ramadan and Shayk Haddad discussing what islah could be, and the ensuing social negotiation of what dinner could be. It was a disembodying experience. MachoMeatPax.

The ummahood feels disembodied and disembowelled. We have been De-ganjed and thrown into megacities where industrial farming and mechanised farming are norms avoidable only with steel and resources. We must resist this detawherance because its causing hypocrisy. Tawherence being integrity between belief and practice.

The literal truth and the the logic of our embodied practice link (un)ethical consumption to perpetuation of (in)justice to ensuing human behaviour.