Why Muslims don’t pig out
By Khaled Diab
Muslims
may sing odes to alcohol and even abandon religion, but pigs will fly before
most will allow pork to pass their lips.
July 2008
Over the years, I have witnessed my faith
dwindle and unravel. But long after my spirited embrace of alcohol, my ‘sinful’
attitude to sex, my loss of faith in the temple of
organised religion and my agnosticism and indifference towards the Supreme
Being, one bizarre artefact of faith – a sacred cow that refused to be
slaughtered – clung on with obstinate pig-headedness: a distaste for pork.
For years, this irrational aversion intrigued
and amused my wife. Katleen would wonder why it was
that many secular Muslims would drink alcohol and commit other non-orthodox
acts, but never touch pork. And I would watch her with awe-struck fascination
as she tucked into a spaghetti carbonara, with
apparent enjoyment.
My theory was that, for believing but
non-practicing Muslims, there is nothing that can really take the place of
alcohol – even hashish or marijuana, which is consumed by many Muslims as an
alternative because it is not explicitly prohibited, is not the same as a glass
of wine or beer. My friends tend to agree with this analysis.
“If you don’t drink you don’t drink,” remarks
Ahmed, an Egyptian in Paris who is a great connoisseur of beers, rakis and ouzos. “But as for pork, there are other
types of meat.”
Then, there’s the psychological barrier that
even the most lapsed Muslim must grapple with. “I think all the talk
we hear in childhood of how pigs are bred in ‘Zebala’
(rubbish) areas and how they feed on garbage revolts us,” says Abdou, a Cairene who has
developed a taste for certain types of pig meat, but not others.
In fact, eating pork for Muslims is not merely
tantamount to eating dogs for westerners, in certain cases, we could go as far
as to liken it to consuming cockroaches – that unclean is the image of these
animals.
Some Muslims rationalise their porkiephobia by explaining that pigs are dangerous to eat,
especially in hot climates, but pork is no more risky, at least in the modern
world, than beef and poultry. The injunction may have originally been connected
to health concerns, environmental worries in an arid climate where foraging
pigs could destroy precious grazing land, or as a simple test of faith and
obedience.
“We are not a pig-friendly people,” Abdou observers.
And, indeed, we’re not. At school in England, I
could tell that, unlike Aladdin
and Sindbad, the Three Little Pigs
was certainly not a Muslim fairytale. No self-respecting Muslim wolf would be
wasting his breath, huffing and puffing, just to get his claws on some poor
pig’s bacon. A Muslim wolf would be far more interested in skewering Mary’s little lamb to
make mouth-watering kebabs.
Miss Piggy would never have
got passed the audition couch for the Muslim version of the Muppet Show – even
for comic effect. Muslim casters may have hired instead Miss Bully, a doe-eyed
bovine beauty who flies into sudden fits of rage like a bull in a china shop.
That said, pigs don’t
get a completely smooth ride in western culture. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs
are duplicitous hypocrites who wind up taking the farm over from the humans. In
England, the police are not so affectionately known as ‘pigs’. The animal is
used a term of insult, as in ‘male, chauvinist pig’, or ‘capitalist swine’. And
people greet unwelcome comments with snorts of derision.
Nevertheless, this more sympathetic view of
pigs may have influenced Jews, despite the fact that pork is prohibited by both
kosher and halal rules alike, to
adopt a more relaxed attitude to pork. “Pork evokes no special image in my
mind. Pigs are cute. I just don’t eat’em,” Debby, an
American Jew, said.
“Almost all of the Jews I know eat pork,” Hagay, an Israeli artist, told me. “My grandmother even
used to say: ‘If you’re going to eat pork, you might as well have the fat drip
down your chin.’”
That said, many Jews
share the Muslim knee-jerk horror and revulsion towards pigs. “Both my parents
can’t stand the idea of pork,” admits Gal, a student in Tel Aviv. “Neither of
them is particularly religious… but both my mother and my father find the idea
of eating pig repulsive.”
And revulsion could be the key to my
longstanding distaste for pork. I still clearly recall my first taste of pig’s
meat. On my second day at school in England, the dinner lady offered me a slice
of Hard to Ascertain Meat (or HAM, for short) which had tickled my curiosity
because it looked a bit like the luncheon cold-cuts we ate in Egypt.
I don’t much recall the actual taste, but I do remember
the shocking aftertaste when my mother and father – who had casually been
inquiring about my new school experience – informed me that I’d probably
consumed ham. Although my parents were relaxed about it and explained that I
wasn’t to blame for it was an accident, I sensed disgust wash over me.
Since then, a recurring question I have asked
in restaurants around the world is: does this contain pork? Sometimes, I’ve
even resorted to mime and snorting to get my question across. I recall the
spellbound fascination with which I regarded an old Cairo friend as he tucked
into the Italian salamis and hams he had recently developed a taste for.
In recent years, I have bested my demons and
now eat pork, although there are still certain types of pig’s meat I cannot
stomach. As someone who prides himself on his culinary intrepidness, I am
pleased with this small victory for gastronomic rationality. I am glad I can
finally bring home the bacon!
This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 2
July 2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.