Colonial Regulation of Religious Slaughter of Animals

• In Event: Empires of Knowledge: Environments Between the Colony and the Globe

Abstract

The issue of religious slaughter of animals challenged the distinction between public and private realm reserved for religious affairs during the colonial period. For the sake of convenience, all slaughtering of cattle except pigs in Malaya and Singapore during the early twentieth century was done according to the Islamic method to ensure that the meat was lawful for the majority of the population. Infrastructure supporting the meat market had real repercussions for an entire state or region. Frozen meat imported from Australia was expensive, despite being very popular amongst European residents. Importation on the hoof remained the most economically viable way of supplying beef and mutton to inhabitants of British Malaya. Colonial officials were forced to supervise the process of loading and discharging live cargo in the harbor, and the crating of poultry for rail transport into the Malay Peninsular from the port in Singapore. Colonial structures prevented useful discussions from occurring between colonial authorities and Muslim subjects that could lead to mutual understanding and useful consensus. In 1929, a Muslim butcher in the British Straits Settlement of Penang was fined in a British colonial court for causing unnecessary cruelty to a fowl, despite his claim that he had slaughtered the animal according to the proper Islamic method. The case forced the issue of religious slaughter even more into the public sphere, and sparked intense debates in the public press on the viability of Islamic method of animal slaughter. For Muslim subjects, animal slaughter was definitely a deeply religious issue but animal welfare groups robustly advocated stunning by electricity as a more effective and humane method of slaughter. General hygiene of slaughterhouses and economic considerations also played a large role in colonial intervention in animal slaughter since the early 20th century.

Author

• Nurfadzilah Yahaya, National University of Singapore