Let us start of today with a question! How important is it to you where your meat comes from? Do you ever bother to take the time to think about whether or not you care how that animal was treated before slaughter; how it was fed, whether it was healthy and whether it had a good life? Do you believe that an animal which was raised better, tastes better? Do you believe in paying more for good quality Tayyib meat?

Are you asking yourself what tayyib is?

We live in a society which is quite literally OBSESSED with the word Halaal, and with associating that word with meat alone. There’s a lot of emphasis placed on eating Halaal, but there is far less emphasis on whether meat is Tayyib, which is just as important and deeply rooted in Islamic principles.

The word tayyib is from taa-ya-ba (ط ي ب) and it literally means to be good, pleasant, agreeable, lawful. The word ‘tayyib’ itself means to be good, clean, wholesome, gentle, excellent, fair and lawful. From these meanings we get the general meaning for tayyib of anything that is good and pure. So, with that in mind, Halaal ensures the animal is slaughtered in the correct way and is permissible for us to eat, while Tayyib ensures the food we eat is healthy, nutritious and good for us. It is important to know that the animals we consume are healthy, free of disease, hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals at the time of slaughter. In fact, even during slaughter, we as Muslims are not allowed to inflict unnecessary pain on the animal and the animal should be slaughtered away from the sight and hearing of the other animals.

Allah says in the Quran:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ كُلُواْ مِمَّا فِي الأَرْضِ حَلاَلاً طَيِّباً وَلاَ تَتَّبِعُواْ خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ إِنَّهُ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ

O you people! Eat of what is on earth, Halaal and Tayyib and do not follow the footsteps of the evil one, for he is to you an avowed enemy. [Baqarah 2: 168]

Allah ﷻ, when referring to food always says the words Halaal and Tayyib together in the Qur’an, never Halaal by itself. This begs the question, why have we decided to ignore half the criteria? We do a good job of knowing what is Halaal and what isn’t, but I wonder why we’re not as diligent when it comes to the Tayyib. From this Qur’anic passage, we know that Tayyib meat is and should be considered just carefully as Halaal meat.

While the obsession with Halaal meat is ever growing, millennial Muslims are taking an interest beyond whether their meat has simply been slaughtered in a Halaal manner, such as whether their meat is being obtained from an animal that’s been looked after, treated decently and which has lived a happy life. Muslim’s nowadays want meat that’s of excellent quality, ethically sourced and sustainable. Questions like: ‘What breed of animal is it?, ‘How were they slaughtered?’ and ‘What they were fed?’ are becoming more frequently asked in Muslim-run restaurants, and these questions also extend to the other ingredients used to make up the dishes on restaurant menus.

So why don’t more of us consume Tayyib meat? It’s probably down to three things: lack of awareness, convenience, and cost.

For some reason, there is less emphasis and recognition on the word Tayyib in our communities. We as Muslims need to start to highlight and promote the benefits and necessities around Tayyib meat.

The second issue is convenience. There’s inevitable tension between Muslims desire for convenience and the quest for spiritual gains. Unfortunately, convenience usually wins. Poor quality Halaal meat is all too easy to find.

Now there is this third issue on COST. Naturally, you get what you pay for. Price is a major consideration for Muslims, at the expense of meat quality. Many Muslims today don’t even know what good quality meat tastes like. They go buy their cheap, intensely farmed produce, cover it in a load of spices, and fail to actually taste their protein source for what it is.

Just as a relevant side-note, eating lots of meat is anything but Islamic. According to researchers, historically, Muslims ate so little meat they were almost vegetarian. In fact, meat would only be on the menu once a week if Muslim’s were wealthy, and maybe a few times a year if they were poor. The prophet Muhammad ﷺ was also not an advocate of daily meat-eating. His habitual diet actually consisted of favourite foods like dates, water, vinegar, honey, yogurt, barley bread, and grapes. Meat was available only occasionally, and when it was he favoured sheep’s shoulder/foreleg.

The second Caliph, Umar ibn al Khattaab RA notably stated: “beware of meat, for it is addictive like alcohol.”  It seems that 1,500 years later, these concerns are being far from heeded. Further to this, Umar RA, during his khilafa, also prohibited people from eating meat two days in a row. He only allowed them to eat [it] every other day. Once, he saw one man eating meat every day, and he said to him, ‘Every time you get hungry you go out and buy meat? Right? In other words, every time your nafs wants meat, you go out and buy it?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Amir al-Mumineen, ana qaram,’ which in Arabic, ‘qaram’ means ‘I love meat’—he’s a carnivore, he loves meat. And Sayyidina Umar RA said, ‘It would be better for you to roll up your tummy a little bit so that other people can eat.”

Besides the Islamic reason to not eat meat regularly, there are also scientific reasons as to why they ate meat occasionally: although meat is a beneficial and permissible food, it is harmful when eaten regularly. Regular meat intake coincides with increased disease: heart disease, cancer, and obesity. SubhanAllah, it’s amazing when science proves something the prophet taught us to do 1400 years ago, and it goes to shows how science is playing catch up to religion.