Beyond Ramadan: The Sacred Aspect Of Halal Food

I came to the U.S. when I was 23 years old. When I first got here, I worked for a construction company for a while. Then I got the idea to go start my own halal business with my brother in 1987. We started with a small business on North Broad Street called Al-Noor Halal Pizza. Very soon, we noticed people really liked it, Muslim and non-Muslim. They like the food because it is healthy and tasty.

Preparing halal foods requires God's permission. He wants you to say his name before you kill an animal. You have to make sure you are gentle and your knife is very sharp and you don't torture the creature. You have to be easy and gentle. After that, anybody can eat it, Muslim or non-Muslim. In the same way, anybody can work in a halal restaurant as a cook or work the counters - Muslims, Christians, Jews.

I used to slaughter animals myself when I was a kid. I started when I was 10 years old in my homeland of Palestine. My mother had a little chicken farm, and she always asked me to be the one to kill the chickens for the family meal. When I first started here in the U.S., I would go with a friend and we would kill the meat and dress it, then we would have to freeze the halal beef and chicken and bring it to the shop. After this we would slice it with our hands. It was a whole lot of work.

Business started to get better and better. Eventually, I moved to a larger space in Germantown, Philadelphia, and my wife began helping me. Everything you see in my shop and restaurant I built myself.