Eating Pigs is Not Allowed.

When you are a Muslim, every so often someone will come along and as one of those annoying questions: “Why can’t Muslims eat pigs?” and other questions along the same lines. Sometimes, the people asking these questions have Muslims names also but their questions will come out slightly differently: “Why can’t we eat pigs?”

Sometimes, the latter may even ask more specific questions like: “Why must we pray in a specific way? Why can’t I just pray in anyway I see fit and proper?  If these people are sincere in their question, there would not be a problem. You tell that what the reasons are, they accept them or they do not but you can both move on to something else.  Incidentally, these reasons in Arabic are called dalils and there are two types: dalil nakli (reasons from scriptures) and dalil akli (literally, reasons of the mind: logic).  However, there is another kind of people: the ones who insist on arguing about the question. 

With these latter kinds of people, you may give them the dalils (both of them) but they will then ask for more proof.  You give them the proof and / or provide your supporting arguments and they will argue against the proof and your argument.  So a more prolongued “discussion” follows.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there are those who simply want more proof or want to examine the arguments behind the proofs which is only fair. After all, these things may involve changing beliefs that they (or you) have hung on to since time immemorable.  There is another breed of people involved here.  These are those who simply would not accept what you tell them.  These people will soon become annoying and they will persist even when they initial question is past and forgotten. 

To recognize these people is easy.  Observe how they argue.  First, their arguments will soon become emotional.  This means they will get emotional themselves, or they will start using arguments or lexical items that are not aimed at pushing the argument forward but rather at provoking emotional responses from you.  They do this so that they will then be able to accuse you of being emotional and irrational, and thus claiming that they are better.  Second, they employ the strategy of rudeness.  This usually happens with the lesser educated of this species.  The even more degenerated ones will soon begin to employ insults or insulting behavior which may be verbal, physical or even electronic. This strategy involves trying to bring you down to their level and then claiming that they are not as deep in the gutter as you are.  I know, it is not entirely logically sound but this is the behavior of this subspecies. 

Returning to the initial question, you will soon find these individuals tiring.  That is if you are trying to carry a reasoned argument.  If however, you have decided to or loss the ability to control your composure and thus unable to remain intellectual and calm, you will find that the logic and rhetoric will give way to increasingly moronic and imbecilic labeling of each other and aspects of each other’s existence.  

If urge you to maintain your rationality because it will soon dawn on you that these people had never intended to accept anything you can provide them in the first place orr worse still, they were never capable of accepting anything you may tell or show then that do not agree with their stand on whatever it is that your are arguing over.  

Personally, I have encountered numerous people of this species and the more annoying subspecies.  I have even had the opportunity to observe the behavior of a number of them.  There are perhaps theories out there that better explain this behavior but this is one that I have surmised. 

Let us return to  my example of the ‘eating pigs’ question.  Is it possible that the people asking this question and arguing ad nauseum harbor a deep seated and unacknowledged desire to eat pigs, that if they are from people who are not supposed to eat it.  As for those who are among those who eat it anyway, it is probably a fear that we are trying to stop them from eating it.  For the purpose of this piece, I am not including the latter and focusing on he former people.

I suspect, they are really looking for a scapegoat to be responsible, in their minds, for them not obeying the rule.  Maybe they think that if they asked (here or in the hereafter), they can say, “I ate the pig because so and so failed to convince me that it is really haram”.  Wishful thinking really.

As Muslims, our responsibility if to convey the message: to do it truthfully and patiently, it says so in the Quran: Surah Al Asr.  More importantly, for example in the case of pig eating, conveying is all that we can do.  Only Allah can change a person’s mind.  More importantly, we have already been given the Quran to consult and the Prophet SAW as an example to follow.  If the word of Allah and the best of men does not change their minds, what hope do you and I have?

We are told to convey the message, by conveying the dalils and maybe explaining matters a little but we have actually done our job: our responsibilities are complete.  After all, we can only do what is in our power to do.  Changing people’s minds is not within our power to do.  So, all in all, we can only,

1.      Tell them what the Quran says

2.      Tell them what the Prophet SAW teaches us about the matter at hand

3.      Perhaps explain to the extent that we can

4.      Bid them peace and pray that they see the light.

Most importantly, we need to do it patiently and truthfully (Al Asr), in other words to speak with hikmah.

In the end, if they want to eat the pig, they will eat it anyway.  So, leave them to their own guilt. If they don’t feel it the guilt… well, need I say more?

I really don’t see the point of arguing anyway.  Perhaps pig rearing is clean today, perhaps pig meat is free from Trico now but that is the extent of our knowledge today.  A thousand years ago, they may have made similar arguments but they did not know what we do today about the meat.  Is it not possible that in the future they will discover more problems with the meat. Even then the situation will still be the same: pig meat will still be haram.  It will be useful to know more about it but haram will still be haram.

This is where the last line of Al Kafiruun make a whole lot of sense.

By the way, you can consult the Quran yourself.  Go to Quran.com