Turkey & Halal Food

[ENIGMA]

You'd never guess what...?!! Alhumdolillah a response below just an hour ago after 2 years! (though i didnt send him a reminder yesterday to my email to him on 30/9/08)

Wa Alaikum Salam Wa Rahmatullah,

Dear brother, sorry for my late response. Turkiye doesn't use any sort of shock or pre-stunning tools. Our biggest struggle is to make sure hygene in place and shariah compliance (saying Bismillah before slaughter, treating animals right etc.) is followed but shock,pre-stunning tool is not common practice.

I am part of Gimdes Halal Certification Body based in Istanbul. (http://www.gimdes.org - http://www.halalcertificationturkey.com/ irtibat@gimdes.org)

As far as the hotels, I would recommend Golden Horn (http://www.goldenhornhotel.com/eng/) and Grand Cevahir (http://www.grandcevahirhotel.com/) The hotels you listed are European based, secular hotels. If you'd like to enjoy the adhan in the mornings, you definitely want to check Golden Horn, it is very close to Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace.

[daywalk3r]

JazakAllah. Could you possibly ask him about these hotels please: Shearaton and Hilton?

His response above wrt hotels was in response to those you mentioned.

[muminah]

His response above wrt hotels was in response to those you mentioned.

OK JazakAllah, so correct me if I am wrong, but if I stay in the hotel and they re-assure me it is halal meat, then it probably is as there are no issues of stunning, and in his previous email he mentioned meat doesn't come from outside, and all the meat is slaughtered with allahs name?

[daywalk3r]

though there seems to be no issue of stunning it wasnt clear from his responses if the animals are individually hand slaughtered so i emailed him yesterday and his response this morning is:-

For red meat, 99.9% is slaughtered by hand but chickens are mostly machine based. You need to be very vigilant and questioning about chicken and make sure you are getting the hand slaughtered ones. Just a rough estimate 10% of the chickens are hand slaughtered in Turkiye at this point. Unless you go into villages or safe sources, the big companies are using machine based slaughtering.

[daywalk3r]

Im not going take the responsilbilty of saying X and Y country or company is ok as from just a few emails it wont be appropriate to reach such a conclusion to remove any major doubts so soon - though from the face of it so far it seems ok. Please email the Halal organisation directly - the addy is on the website i posted on page 1.

It'll be helpful if Br Umar_Italy also commented on this thread. ....

[ENIGMA]

OK JazakAllah, so correct me if I am wrong, but if I stay in the hotel and they re-assure me it is halal meat, then it probably is as there are no issues of stunning, and in his previous email he mentioned meat doesn't come from outside, and all the meat is slaughtered with allahs name?

I understood that differently. what I understood was that all the meat was slaughtered correctly though no guarantee whether the name of Allah was taken or not.

But now it seems chicken are machine slaughtered and the red meat is hand slaughtered. But still no clarification on whether the name of Allah is taken or not.

[ENIGMA]

OK JazakAllah, so correct me if I am wrong, but if I stay in the hotel and they re-assure me it is halal meat, then it probably is as there are no issues of stunning, and in his previous email he mentioned meat doesn't come from outside, and all the meat is slaughtered with allahs name?

From the responses which daywalker has got,it seems the animals are not stunned yet it might be that the name of Allah is not taken.

[Colonel_Hardstone]

May I ask the reasons for eating meat on holidays? I travel around the world and don't eat meat UNLESS I am 110% sure, for proteins you can have eggs, milk, fish etc.

I have never had a problem and can survive in most places without meat for weeks and months.

[daywalk3r]

May I ask the reasons for eating meat on holidays? I travel around the world and don't eat meat UNLESS I am 110% sure, for proteins you can have eggs, milk, fish etc.

I have never had a problem and can survive in most places without meat for weeks and months.

Theres NO way im going Turkey for 2 weeks and not eating a Kebab. end of.

[Al-Faruqi]

Theres NO way im going Turkey for 2 weeks and not eating a Kebab. end of.

The Döner Kebap in its current form, meaning the meat with salad in a bread, was invented in a Turkish fast food restaurant in Berlin. A few years ago I've been invited by a Turkish brother to eat there and it has also been confirmed by Turkish guy that the best Döner Kebaps are found in Germany not Turkey.

Wanna come to Germany? haha