[SuzyQue]

"Sharia law expressly forbids knocking the animal out with a bolt gun, as is usual in British slaughter­houses. Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited."

So that the butcher can get the most sadistic pleasure from the process? WTH?

[Optimist]

The ritual slaughter in Jewish (and Muslim?) law is an ideal method of slaughter that results in the swiftest and most painless method of killing. Since Jewish dietary law also requires sanguination to prevent consumption of the blood, cutting the carotid also results in swift draining of the blood. Obviously these laws were put into place prior to chemical or electric “stunning” were available, and given the option of beating the animal to death, it was then (and still is) a humane method of slaughter.....however archaic in our hi-tech society which has found more efficient assembly line methods.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited.”

Practice for when they cut the head off an infidel.