What is the ruling on slaughtering chickens with automatic machines while they pass through an electric shock?

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : May Allah greet you. I do not want to take up too much of your time.

The Shaykh : Please go ahead.

The questioner : I actually have a group of questions, and I hope to Allah that they will be short. We have large companies in Canada for slaughtering chickens and beef and mutton. They wanted to obtain a certificate from the Muslims in Toronto that would allow them, or have the Muslims sign this certificate allowing them to market it under the name of Islamic meat or meat slaughtered in

The Shaykh : slaughtered in the Islamic way, meaning the modern fashion.

The questioner : Ah, the modern fashion. We actually had many conditions for them, but they were unable to

The Shaykh : respond to

The questioner : bring them all. One of the conditions they could not implement was that they must pass an electric current through a small water channel so that it moves through the chicken from its head to make it dizzy, to facilitate the automatic or mechanical slaughter of the chicken. They slaughter ten thousand chickens at once. It is possible that with this shock, if the chicken has a weak heart, it may die.

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.

The questioner : But their law is that if the inspector sees a dead chicken, he removes it from the line on which it moves. So what is the way out of this issue?

The Shaykh : In any case, from the Islamic perspective, there are two things: one relates to the permissibility of eating the slaughtered animal, even if it is slaughtered, and the other relates not to the eating but to the slaughterer. I said: this question has two sides to its answer. One side relates to the permissibility of this slaughtered animal, and the other side relates to the slaughterer. If a butcher slaughters a sheep with any sharp object, such as a stone or wood, until its blood flows, then as far as eating it is concerned, it becomes permissible because its blood has flowed. But as for the second aspect, which is the butcher, he has committed a forbidden act because he tortured this animal. My answer is based on his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . This one who slaughtered with a means other than a sharp knife until the blood of the beast flowed has made it permissible to eat, but he tortured it, so he is sinful. Is this distinction clear? Good. These Westerners claim that they brought the principle of kindness to animals. They are liars, because the linguistic expression "animal" includes both the speaking animal and the mute animal. Meanwhile, they restricted kindness to animals to the mute animal that does not speak, and then they poured all their harshness on the speaking animal, which is the human being, whom Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has honored above all He has created. And this is said even if they actually achieved the principle of kindness to animals, even in this narrow sense—the mute animal—but everything differs with their materialism and greed. So there is no such thing as kindness to animals, let alone to humans. And as I mentioned earlier, in their way of saving time and earning money, due to this saving, they shock the chickens and other animals, as we have been informed. This is torture of the animal, and the animal is not relieved except by slaughtering it in the Sharia'ah way. Therefore, the Muslim who wants to issue fatwas to people or to grant a dispensation to some people, it is not permissible for him to only consider the aspect of the permissibility of eating this animal or whether it is forbidden, but he must also observe kindness to the animal. Therefore, I do not see it permissible for a group of Muslims there to give a permit, or as they say today—the green light—that this is permissible in Islam, and then distribute it to people or to the Islamic world, as is the case with Bulgarian meat and the like. And the problem lies with the one who issued this fatwa because he ignored the aspect relating to the slaughterer and was content to understand that this animal was slaughtered. This is if we assume that it is actually slaughtered and its blood flows after that shock, and if we also assume that the medical inspection is precise with them. I said that if we assume that the veterinary doctor there actually includes in his inspection every chicken that died from the shock

The questioner : he cannot

The Shaykh : and this is unlikely. Yes, so it is not permissible.