"Prime without the rib", or "sheets of meat"
well, since there's already a website about it, i guess it's not as far off as one might think: New Harvest.
hubby and i were talking last night about the ethical dimensions of technological advancements in an islamic framework; his thoughts had been spurred by reading about this research, which aims to engineer actual meat from a single muscle cell, so that theoretically you could have a chicken nugget without ever killing a chicken - and theoretically, a single cell could be used to "grow" enough meat to feed the global population for a year.
back to that exciting thought in a minute. but hubby was citing, for example, space travel - what spurs modern space exploration is, perhaps, a desire to find out where we come from (although i argue that it is also a matter of understanding our place in the universe, etc etc). but as muslims we already know "where we come from," and then there's the ayah from surah ar-rahman, "O ye assembly of Jinns and men! If it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!" (that's yusuf ali). i don't want to speculate rashly, being as far from a qur'anic scholar as one can be, but is it a warning? could it even apply to space exploration? what would our goals be, as humanity, for space travel, in an islamic framework? would it be more islamic, for example, to redirect NASA's billions into addressing social ills and inequalities? (yes, this reminds one of dan brown's "deception point").
that's one aspect of scientific study, just an example (other than human cloning or embryonic stem cell research) that could have moral or religious dimensions. not that there's anything inherently immoral about space travel. but as muslims, do we simply allow our human curiosity to carry us as far as we can possibly go, the way, for example, we know if we CAN clone humans, somebody somewhere is going to do it no matter what the laws? obviously it doesn't have the same ethical implications, but, if we can grow meat instead of ziba-ing animals, should we?
my reaction to "sheets of meat" was "ew." i feel like it's in my fitrah to react that way to the thought of eating meat that never really came from an animal. well, it would, in a way, but the issue of zabihah or not would be moot. technically even vegetarians could eat this meat, depending on why they are vegetarian. but one of the scientists on the project, jason matheny from UMD, has a different take on the reaction:
"It is unnatural, actually culturing things outside of an animal," he says (quoted in a village voice article). "On the other hand, you don't find intensively confined animals on antibiotics and growth promoters in the forest. I think part of the reaction to cultured meat is based on not knowing how their meat is produced."
which doesn't apply if you try to eat only organic, free range meat, for example (that's another blog entry entirely, organic or zabiha?). but still. does this natural human reaction give us a clue as to how we should approach these questions? william saletan in this slate article argues that culturing meat rather than killing for it is just another step upward in human evolution:
"Every society lives with two kinds of moral problems: the ones it's ready to face, and the ones that will become clear or compelling only in retrospect," he says. "Human sacrifice, slavery, the subjugation of women—every tradition seems normal and indispensable until we're ready, morally and economically, to move beyond it."
i wonder what the mullahs and shaikhs will say about it. i wonder how many more different questions musa will face growing up that we could not even imagine a couple of years ago...
(just to be safe, "prime without the rib" is a subhed from a july 6 2005 UMD newsdesk article...)
hubby and i were talking last night about the ethical dimensions of technological advancements in an islamic framework; his thoughts had been spurred by reading about this research, which aims to engineer actual meat from a single muscle cell, so that theoretically you could have a chicken nugget without ever killing a chicken - and theoretically, a single cell could be used to "grow" enough meat to feed the global population for a year.
back to that exciting thought in a minute. but hubby was citing, for example, space travel - what spurs modern space exploration is, perhaps, a desire to find out where we come from (although i argue that it is also a matter of understanding our place in the universe, etc etc). but as muslims we already know "where we come from," and then there's the ayah from surah ar-rahman, "O ye assembly of Jinns and men! If it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!" (that's yusuf ali). i don't want to speculate rashly, being as far from a qur'anic scholar as one can be, but is it a warning? could it even apply to space exploration? what would our goals be, as humanity, for space travel, in an islamic framework? would it be more islamic, for example, to redirect NASA's billions into addressing social ills and inequalities? (yes, this reminds one of dan brown's "deception point").
that's one aspect of scientific study, just an example (other than human cloning or embryonic stem cell research) that could have moral or religious dimensions. not that there's anything inherently immoral about space travel. but as muslims, do we simply allow our human curiosity to carry us as far as we can possibly go, the way, for example, we know if we CAN clone humans, somebody somewhere is going to do it no matter what the laws? obviously it doesn't have the same ethical implications, but, if we can grow meat instead of ziba-ing animals, should we?
my reaction to "sheets of meat" was "ew." i feel like it's in my fitrah to react that way to the thought of eating meat that never really came from an animal. well, it would, in a way, but the issue of zabihah or not would be moot. technically even vegetarians could eat this meat, depending on why they are vegetarian. but one of the scientists on the project, jason matheny from UMD, has a different take on the reaction:
"It is unnatural, actually culturing things outside of an animal," he says (quoted in a village voice article). "On the other hand, you don't find intensively confined animals on antibiotics and growth promoters in the forest. I think part of the reaction to cultured meat is based on not knowing how their meat is produced."
which doesn't apply if you try to eat only organic, free range meat, for example (that's another blog entry entirely, organic or zabiha?). but still. does this natural human reaction give us a clue as to how we should approach these questions? william saletan in this slate article argues that culturing meat rather than killing for it is just another step upward in human evolution:
"Every society lives with two kinds of moral problems: the ones it's ready to face, and the ones that will become clear or compelling only in retrospect," he says. "Human sacrifice, slavery, the subjugation of women—every tradition seems normal and indispensable until we're ready, morally and economically, to move beyond it."
i wonder what the mullahs and shaikhs will say about it. i wonder how many more different questions musa will face growing up that we could not even imagine a couple of years ago...
(just to be safe, "prime without the rib" is a subhed from a july 6 2005 UMD newsdesk article...)
posted by Ayesha | 11:05 AM
5 Comments:
well technically, muslims don't eat that much meat to begin with...or we shouldn't. but i would definitley cringe at "sheets." i dont even like the look of the minced white stuff in fish chips.
i always thought that verse you cited had a lot to do with the concept of escape velocity. (think back to high school physics)
YUSUFALI: O ye assembly of Jinns and men! If it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!
PICKTHAL: O company of jinn and men, if ye have power to penetrate (all) regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate (them)! Ye will never penetrate them save with (Our) sanction.
SHAKIR: O assembly of the jinn and the men! If you are able to pass through the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass through; you cannot pass through but with authority.
i dunno...it's kind of there - you need the "sultaan" to pass....but that can't really be translated as power or strength. hmm. metaphorical, maybe. i remember i first read that verse with interest when i was taking high school physics and happened to be learning about escape velocity.
uh, yeah, high school physics is a lot farther back for me than it is for you... escape velocity?
the amount of force it takes to break free of the earth's gravitational pull (eg. a certain amount of fuel is needed to create a thrust strong enough for a shuttle to blast out of the gravitational pull of the earth, far enough out of the range that it will not fall back into earth's orbit and is instead able to travel into space...like to the moon)
how's THAT for a poli sci major. booyah.
hmm about the space thing i was listening to a cd lecture once and the imam mentioned how the US govt and NASA were so like 'oh we're gonna conquer space' and acting like b/c the had shuttles they were invicible like Allah (astaghfirallah) and that could be why Allah caused Challenger to blow up b/c they implied they were gonna 'challenge' the heavens and ooops guess they couldnt do it so Allah showed them right? i thought that was interesting.
about zabiha vs. organic abu said there is a guy he knows who has an organic farm and raises cows but he has to get his meat slaughtered somewhere else (i dunno why some rule) and he gets his meat slaughtered at that muslim guy's farm in siler city so his meat is both organic AND zabiha. i was like hello abu why dont we get our meat from him. that's just too cool, zabiha & organic!
found this online:
President Reagan said the evening of the Challenger accident, "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us in the way in which they lived their lives. We'll never forget them nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bounds of Earth and touched the face of God."
touched the face of God? excuse me? i dont think so yaaar!
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