What is the ruling on eating meat imported from Bulgaria and Turkey?

Another questioner: His EminenceThe Shaykh : Regarding this, we currently have a problem... What is the ruling on eating imported meat, specifically the Bulgarian meat that comes to our country here? It is known that some say that the slaughter there is performed according to the Islamic method. What is the extent of the compatibility of the hadith of Aisha, recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, regarding the mention of the name of Allah on the meat before eating it, if we doubt that the name was mentioned on the slaughtered animal? What is your opinion on this issue?

The Shaykh : The truth is, I am tired of researching this issue, and may Allah deliver us from Bulgarian meat. Before answering, I want to draw attention to the fact that this specific question has been asked to me repeatedly, along with the hadith of Aisha. It is a concrete error to mention the hadith of Aisha in conjunction with the question about Bulgarian meat. The hadith of Aisha is related to the obligation of mentioning the name of Allah on the slaughtered animal, the obligation of mentioning the name on the slaughtered animal, and it is not related to the method of slaughtering the animal. The problem with Bulgarian meat is not whether they mentioned the name of Allah on it or not, but rather whether these animals were slaughtered according to the Islamic method or killed by other means. If we assume they were killed by other means, your saying "Bismillah" when you want to eat it does not purify it. But if it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method and we do not know whether the name of Allah was mentioned on it or not, then you mention the name of Allah on it when eating. Do you understand? Therefore, the hadith of Aisha should not be linked to Bulgarian meat, because the problem with Bulgarian meat is whether these meats were slaughtered or killed. Regarding this aspect of the question, as for these animals that come to us from Bulgaria in particular, whether they were slaughtered or killed, I usually answer with a detailed response, because I cannot convince every person present, let alone the absent ones who number in the millions, that it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method or not. I cannot do that. But I say that regarding this specific point, whether it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method or not, people are in one of three states, with no fourth. Either they know that it was slaughtered other than according to the Islamic method, in which case it is forbidden for them to eat it. Or they know that it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method, in which case it is lawful for them to eat it. Or they do not know, which is the case of most people. How can ordinary people verify that it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method or not? This is the third and final scenario: they do not know whether it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method or not. It is not yet your turn... Here we mention two hadiths from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): ... Leave what makes you doubt for what does not make you doubt. I mention the second hadith because it aligns with the first, even though its chain is weak: . The point is, you do not know if it is slaughtered or not. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) says to you: . I do not have verification that it was slaughtered according to the Islamic method or according to the method of the disbelievers. But my personal conviction is that these people are impossible to slaughter according to the Islamic method, because the Islamic method takes time, and for the disbelievers, time is bought with gold, and therefore they adopted this method of killing. It happened that I traveled to Britain about ten years ago, and we contacted some Islamic communities there, especially the Pakistanis. We had gotten to know one of them during one of my Umrahs in Jeddah, and I understood from him that he has a slaughterhouse in Britain, in his country, I forgot its name, about 150 or 200 kilometers from London. He has a slaughterhouse according to the Islamic method. It happened that I went to Britain and contacted this man and saw his slaughterhouse, and indeed it is according to the Islamic method. He has a farm where he raises chickens. I forget, may Allah forgive me, every day millions of chickens are slaughtered. He says that some of the English, of course, come to buy from him, whether mutton or chicken, because they know that this method is what matters to them, not whether it is halal or haram. But they know that this method is the most correct. The point is, what is this man doing? He built a large building and made it into rooms. He prepares in the evening the number he wants to slaughter, two hundred or three hundred heads, depending on his capacity, from the sheep market. From the pen to a room near the slaughterhouse, one head enters, a person assigned enters, a person receives the head, lays it down and flattens it, another person passes the knife over it saying "Bismillah, Allahu Akbar," the first person lifts it and hangs it on hooks, and pushes it like this, so it moves on a track. The track moves like this and turns into a second room. We walked with the slaughtered animal, and when it reached the second room, a man was standing waiting. Immediately he began to skin it, and his job is to separate the skin from the body. Then he gives it a third push, as we say, and a third person receives it, cuts open its belly, and takes out the intestines and stomach, and so on, and puts them in a special barrel. He gives it the final push, and with it water, and pumps the water with force to wash it. It comes out clean and shining. He pushes it and it goes to the scale, and so on. This is the Islamic method present in London. Anything other than that is all killing, especially large animals like cows, for example. I cannot imagine that the Bulgarians are slaughtering according to the Islamic method. They used to say that the Waqf sent a committee to supervise and monitor, and then an admission came from the Minister of Waqf that it was revealed that these meats reach us slaughtered other than according to the Islamic method. This is an admission from the Minister of Waqf, and this is natural, because the disbelievers, as we said earlier, cannot waste their time implementing a ruling they do not believe in, but rather we who believe in it. Therefore, I say that whoever is convinced like me that these Bulgarians or other disbelievers cannot slaughter according to the Islamic method, it is forbidden for him to eat it. And praise be to Allah, we have not tasted it. And whoever saw it with his own eyes, or was informed by a trustworthy person, and this is impossible, because who is it that supervises them constantly? This does not exist. I know that these disbelievers put on shows before some committees to sell their goods. When I was in Syria, some of the senior Islamic figures, including some scholars, went to Russia, the land of disbelief and communist deviation, and they returned praising it, saying that the news we hear about pressure, closing of mosques, and not allowing Muslims to perform their religious rites, and so on, is not true. This is how they started talking, and the reality of the matter is that it is a show. This is known about the communists; they do not let a stranger in without hundreds of eyes and spies around him. So they visited them in mosques, bringing communist heads who had been ordered two Fridays before to shave their beards, and they were wearing the turbans known in that land. Look, these are the ones who worship, and a Friday sermon, and what a Friday sermon. So they reported what they actually saw, but they did not notice that these were shows. This is the problem. And I imagine that when the Waqf took news from the committees they sent, they saw it with their own eyes, but the important thing is that they continue to do so in their absence, and I do not believe that they do that at all. So in short: whoever believes like me that it is not slaughtered, it is forbidden for him to eat it. Whoever believes, and you know what "believes" means, i.e., he has firm knowledge that it is slaughtered according to the Islamic method, it is lawful to eat it. Whoever doubts, leave what makes you doubt for what does not make you doubt.