Practice What You Believe: Faith Panel on the Relationship between Religion and Veganism, Part 3 of 4

“So in Islam, we have something which involves animal sacrifice, which is ‘Eid.’ And so the whole point of animal sacrifice on that day is kind of to commemorate what Prophet Ibrahim (Peace be upon Him) did for God when God tested His loyalty. There are other ways that you can celebrate Eid and make sacrifices without making it an animal sacrifice. You can sacrifice your time, your money. It doesn’t have to be an animal. It's the personal sacrifice that is important.”
“Even within the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, animal sacrifice is controversial. So there are Prophets saying you shouldn't do this anymore. When you kill an ox, it's as bad as killing a human being, the Prophets say, and God doesn't want all of this animal sacrifice. So even within those texts you've got that. And then in a modern context, I think we can recognize that after the first century, neither Jews nor Christians are sacrificing. And so in a modern religious context, in Christianity and Judaism, that isn't the question. And so the question is, whether or not anymore we need to consume animals in this way. And I think the answer, in the context where we find ourselves now, is clearly, no.”
“So the kind of outreach that I do is I’ll take part in the ‘Cube of Truth.’ And they've got footage of halal slaughterhouses, as well as other slaughterhouses. So, I'll show Muslims that this is not just in regards to non-halal meat, it’s also the meat that you're eating as well. There's cruelty in all meat production, not just non-halal. Another thing that I do is, whenever I take part in marches now, I'll always have my sign showing religion in it as well. The quote that I read out earlier: ‘A good deed done to an animal is like a good deed done to a human being.’”
“In terms of it being related to the faith in community, we see that we have a prime minister in India right now who has stopped or illegalized the slaughter of cows. So that's a big deal. I mean, he has challenged the status quo. He has challenged a lot of things that are happening there. He's taking a very strong and tough stance. So, he really puts a lot of hope, as a politician is probably for me, like a miracle. But he really is doing great things.”