salam alikom,
Living in the west makes it impossible to eat out! In the UK we have a food outlet called subway. They make your sandwich in front of you, and usually someone in front of you or behind you in the queue is ordering pig meat. So they make the pig inspired sandwich then make your sandwich.
Is okay for muslims to eat there? Surely little pig meat particles are not going to make the whole sandwich haram?
This is such a pain the backside sometimes, because I have to ask the guy serving food to change his gloves when serving me and then they all look at me strangely.
Wa-alaykum assalam wa rahmatullaah,
Oh please..
1) It is
not hard to ask those serving you to change their measly
plastic gloves when making your sandwhich. It takes 10 seconds max, I'm being generous. 20 seconds if you want to additionally explain that you're Muslim and we consider pig meat unclean. 22 seconds if you want to add a nice big grin to accompany all of that, which I do recommend!
2) This is a question of Halaal and Haraam as commanded by Allaah, our Creator. You need to respect the status of something being haraam enough so that you are willing to spend an extra 22 seconds of your life to ensure to your best ability that what you consume is in accordance with Allaah's laws. As a muslim, this is your responsibility, tough job eh?
Why do we have to worry about such trivial things in Islam! It just makes life harder.
Please stop being dramatic about yes, something so trivial as
asking someone to change their gloves.
That is what is actually trivial in all of this.
I don't think you need to worry about it. If your intention was not to consume pork, then it's not like God is going to punish you because pork may or may not have momentarily come in indirect contact with your food.
The point is that in asking them to change their gloves after you know they handled pig meat, you would have tried your best to ensure you are upholding Allaah's law, after that I agree you needn't worry.
Allaah through His mercy judges us according to our individual capabilities and within context, but is it really befitting for us to slack and be lazy after we know this?
We can never perform any amount of good actions to be deserving of His immense mercy, nothing we do makes us deserving of the gifts we have been given in life, yet we still want to trivialise what Allaah made haraam? As I type this, I can think of some examples where I could use this very same advice that Im putting here, this is just as applicable to myself as it may be to you.
We have to be willing to take those extra steps (which may be small because He is merciful) to ensure to our best capability that we're living within the boundaries He has set.
As Muslims we need to revive the tradition of our predecessors, revisit the stories of the Prophets, the Sahaabah, the Salaf and know these are not just some made up stories for the sake of passing the time, rather they relate the struggles and sacrifices of
real people with
real zeal for this deen.
My only conclusion is that we are 'out of touch' we need to adjust our eyepieces and definitions of what a 'difficulty' really is.
Mus'ab ibn Umayr (r)
Abu Dharr al Ghifaari (r)
More here
Wa-salaam
