Answer
Wa `alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
- Islam states few conditions for halal meat such as having proper means of slaughtering and it’s conducted by a Muslim butcher or one from the People of the Book.
- So, don’t be so worried as long as most of people of your country are Christians, even if a few of them are atheists.
Responding to your question, Sheikh Kifah Mustapha, the Imam and Director of the Prayer Center of Orland Park and representative for Dar El Fatwa of Lebanon in the US, states:
I am in favor of such ruling. For permissible meat to be consumed it has to meet few conditions like the process of slaughtering is proper and the people conducting the slaughtering are either Muslims or People of the Book.
Now as to your question, it was reported that the Prophet (pace and blessings be upon him) when initiating a battle, if he heard adhan in a town, he would not engage war (Al-Bukhari), declaring them as Muslims.
With this in mind, we can say that as long as the general dominant faith adopted in a town is Christian and they have churches, then you deal with it as such. Even if few identify themselves as atheists, it does not change the general ruling. And most of these atheists, when they die, are all buried on their born with religious rituals.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.