MELBOURNE – A group of Muslim players in Victoria’s Roxburgh Park Football Club took over the cooking in the club’s last weekly meeting, welcoming people to overcome differences and share a halal barbeque.
“The club has meals every week and as a group we thought we would give back to the club,” Moe El Sheikh, one of the Muslim players, told Star Weekly on Monday, July 25.
“We thought we could bring some revenue to the club to give them back something for what they give us, like trainers and facilities.
Like other sporting clubs in Melbourne, Roxburgh Park Football Club hosts a weekly meal to bring players and officials together.
Usually absent from such gathering, for offering no halal meals, Muslim players approached the club to take over cooking for the night.
Though the club usually welcomes 60 guests during these meetings, the club and players were blown away last Thursday and had to limit the number to 120.
“We knew they’d be happy but credit to president Jason Bolitho for opening up the rooms for us,” El Sheikh said.
“We were a bit overwhelmed by how much interest there was in it. We were hoping to get 80, so 120 meals was amazing
“It’s good the club gets together. It’s not just the seniors, but the junior mums and parents who are coming along too.”
El Sheikh said that hosting a meal was a good way to bring everyone together.
“A barbecue brings out the multicultural in every one,” he said.
“If people can see we’re putting a good face to the Muslim name and Muslim culture, people will look at us differently and it will be better for everyone.”
He hopes to make the dinner an annual event. “Hopefully we can get to 150 people,” he said.
Muslims, who have been in Australia for more than 200 years, make up 2.09 percent of its 18-million population, according to Islamicweb.com.
Islam is the country’s second largest religion after Christianity.
Halal food is consumed not only by 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, but also by at least 500 million non-Muslims.
The concept of halal, — meaning permissible in Arabic — has traditionally been applied to food.
Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.
They do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat filthy and unhealthy to eat.
Now other goods and services can also be certified as halal, including cosmetics, clothing, pharmaceuticals and financial services.