By Drew Jacobs

I recently spoke with Professor Febe Armanios about her new book, Halal Food: A History. In Spring 2013, Professor Armanios began teaching a class here at Middlebury about food in the Middle East. There existed very few classes like this in the country. In preparing a syllabus for that class, she found many publications on Kosher food and Christian conceptions of food as laid out in the bible. Yet, no extensive work had been completed on the Islamic food rules. One year later, an editor reached out to her about writing a potential book on food in the Middle East and the book project was born. Professor Armanios began research in the Spring of 2015 with her husband and co-author Bogac Ergene, a professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of Vermont. The two were awarded a Fellowship at Harvard Law School in the Fall of 2015 where they consulted a variety of legal and historical documents at the Law Library, specifically regarding conceptions of permissible (halal) and impermissible (haram) food in Islam. Throughout our conversation, Professor Armanios repeatedly mentioned the influence of Middlebury College on her work. The book was inspired by a Middlebury History class (HIST 352); several Middlebury History majors served as research assistants; and maps in the book were created by a Middlebury alum.

In short, the book focuses on the Islamic rules surrounding food as described in the Quran and other religious texts. Professors Armanios and Ergene examine how Muslims interpret these laws in their everyday lives. Most Muslims might be familiar with the basic Islamic food rules- for example the prohibition of pork and alcohol, and the insistence on the slaughter of animals in a particular, ritualistic way. Yet through their research, Professors Armanios and Ergene found various debates over the rules and regulations for Islamic diet and food preparation, in different parts of the world.

Specifically, the book highlights food rules according to various Islamic legal schools, which often vary by geography. For example, Indonesia and Malaysia have more flexible rules concerning seafood, as they are surrounded by vast bodies of water and their economies rely on largescale fishing industries. Places with less access to fish or seafood can afford to be more restrictive about the permissibility of seafood. In all, different types of seafood are either prohibited, disapproved, or permitted depending on the specific legal school, extant interpretations, and the geographic setting.

Another theme throughout the book is how developments in the modern world have changed Halal rules, particularly due to the growth of manufactured and packaged food and factory-style animal husbandry. With the rise of canned and processed foods, for instance, it is more difficult for Muslims to be sure of what they are eating and how their food was made. In fact, all religions and peoples now struggle with this dilemma. Whether one is a vegan, vegetarian, Jewish, or Muslim the rise of processed foods has made the task of abiding by strict food rules much more difficult. For example, Jell-O is made from gelatin, which is essentially broken-down cow and pig bone and cartilage. Pig is forbidden for Muslims (and Jews) to eat, yet this prohibition not immediately obvious when one looks at a package of Jell-O. Other ingredients are also considered suspect like trace amounts of alcohol in various food preservatives (e.g. vanilla extract). The question of animal slaughter also poses complications. In traditional Islamic practice, slaughter is to be done by hand, with the animal facing Mecca, and the animal’s blood must be completely drained. In the context of mechanized slaughter of chicken today, however, some Muslims—and Jews as well—are considering whether a machine-slaughtered animal is legally permissible. Additionally, questions of animal ethics, with regard to factory breeding of other animals, have raised concerns among Muslims who seek to eat halal food that comes from ethically raised and humanely treated animals.

Ultimately, Professor Armanios explained her three-year effort of researching and writing this book as challenging yet rewarding. Through her research, she travelled to the Middle East and to Europe to consult primary sources and also to see how local vendors prepare and package halal food. Halal Food: A History has quickly garnered rave reviews, while Professor Armanios is already working away on her third book.