Pigs are sweeties, camels are halal

Star Online - I am a pig, so what? (extracts) by June Wong:

June HL Wong

sweet and lovely - I always have an eye for her
wakakaka

you ain't no pig June but a Sweetie

PIG. Hog. Swine. By any name, poor Porky has endured insults through the ages. Because it is so maligned and misrepresented as a stupid, dirty and greedy creature, being born under that sign wasn’t something I was proud of. My young self found it an absolute embarrassment.

I envied my siblings who were born under “better” signs, especially my younger sister who was born in the year of the dragon and is a high achiever since her primary school days.

born in Year of Dragon 

It didn’t help either that over the years, the pig became the most detested animal in Malaysia. So detested that I think we can adopt the Bosnian expression “Feeling like a pig in Teheran” which means, according to Wikipedia, “being uncomfortable in a situation, presumably because a pig has no place in Islamic surroundings”. All we have to do is replace Teheran with Kuala Lumpur.

That’s why despite the Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad saying there was no ban on using the image of the pig in this Chinese New Year’s decorations in public places, no shopping mall is willing to risk offending Muslim sensitivities by displaying anything remotely porcine.

Chinese (non-Muslims of course) love pigs especially the meat

wakakaka

After all, there have been enough incidents involving the animal to show it’s simply not worth trying to be culturally correct this CNY.

In 2014, Cadbury Malaysia had to recall two batches of chocolate products when the Health Ministry claimed two batches of samples were tainted with porcine DNA. This led to Malay-Muslim groups calling for a nationwide boycott on all Cadbury products to wage a holy war against the company for attempting to “weaken” Muslims in Malaysia. The dust settled when the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) subsequently said there was no such contamination and that the chocolates were halal after all.

The following year, an Australian company pulled the plug on its electronic billboard Hari Raya greeting in KL because its wombat mascot was mistaken for a pig.

wombat 

hippopotamus


In Malaysia in 2015 the wombat was mistaken for a pig

several thousands of years ago the ancient Egyptians (not today's Arabs) mistook the hippopotamus (an animal sacred to the God Seth) for a pig, and hence started the abstinence for pork and things piggy

that custom of abstaining from pork was adopted by the Hebrews-Israelites-Judeans-Jew and Muslims

Then in 2017, the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry seized 2,003 paint brushes made from pig bristles that were not properly labelled in a nationwide crackdown.

But Muslims aren’t the only ones who want nothing to do with the pig. The Jews also don’t consume pork and in the Bible (Leviticus 11:7) Moses and his followers are forbidden to eat swine “because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud”.

OK, so the Hebraic laws as espoused in Leviticus 11:1-7 goes as follows:

And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

5 And the coney [a rabbit], because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you..

Ad that's what June Wong meant on why Muslims (and Orthodox Jew and their Hebrew, israelite, Judean ancestors) don't eat pork, namely because the pig, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud , the exact opposite of the camel, coney and hare, which though cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof.

YHWH was/is an exacting God who demands all 'conditions', namely, Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, may then be eaten.

Also see my older post written in 2005 (14 years ago) titled Why Orthodox Jews Don't Eat Pork!

Stewart Lee Allen, author of 'In the Devil's Garden', all about 'haram-ish' food, after he had discussed a few other reasons (including a discussion on kosher split hoofed cud-chewing animals and the problem of trichinosis) says:

"Historians fancy the notion that Jewish pig phobia stems from their stint as slaves in Egypt during the time when the cult of the god Seth held pigs to be exalted beasts."

But while Jews and Shia Muslims don't partake of camel meat - the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you - Sunnis do.

Islam shares many similar beliefs with Judaism, among them belief in one god, same angels, same prophets (Yehoshua ben Yosef /Isa and Mohamad being the exceptions)*, circumcision and also dietary observance, to wit, what is kosher (halal) and what is not (haram).

* To Jews, Yehoshua ben Yosef or more commonly Yeshua ben Yosef was a Judean heretic whilst to Muslims, he was a prophet (Nabi). To Christians, he was Christ the son of the Christian god

To Muslims, Mohamad was god's last prophet, but Judaism and Christianity don't recognise him at all

Jesus as Europeans see him 

Jesus as South Koreans see him 

Commissioned by the BBC, forensic anthropologist Richard Neave developed a image of the Christian figure that is pretty far removed from the face we're used to—but one that was informed by historical evidence and computerised tomography.

Neave is an expert in forensic facial reconstruction, and by taking three Semitic skulls from Israeli archeological sites (near where Jesus is believed to have been born), he was able to use computerised x-ray and ultrasound techniques to construct a model of Jesus' face. Based on anthropological and genetic data, he came up with the image pictured above.

Orthodox Jews and Muslims don't eat pork but when it comes to camel, they differ.

Pig is an animal which has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud. Thus it fulfils only one of the two requirements for a 'clean' animal and must not be eaten.

In these respects, as mentioned above, the camel is the exact opposite - though it chews the cud, it does not have a divided hoof. Thus it too fulfils only one of the two requirements for a 'clean' animal and must not be eaten.

Jews and Shiite Muslims don't eat both the pig and camel.

But interestingly, Sunni Muslims do eat the camel. In fact during Eid al-Adha in Malaysia, in previous years it's known politicians donated camels to be sembileh and the meat distributed as part of the religious festival.

I was told by a Muslim that one of the aHadith (but not the Quran) authorises Sunnis to consider camel meat as halal.