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Fatwa CenterEating Meat in US
Question
I am a 17 years old (Arabic and Muslim) I live in U.S.A with my dad. So here I have to eat American food such as chicken and meat, but it is American, but I don't want to eat them. My father forces me to eat and I think they are not Halal foods, so please tell me what do you think. And I really appreciate it.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Allah has permitted His Slaves goodness from their fortune, and He has ordered them to seek goodness in their food, drink and all their affairs.
He has also made it permissible for them to eat animals that are slaughtered according to the Islamic rites and prohibited for them what is beyond that, as Allah Says (what means): {Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah, and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience...} [Quran 5:3]
Furthermore, Allah has prohibited them against consuming anything which has been slaughtered without the name of Allah being mentioned during the slaughtering process, and He has mentioned it as a sin and disobedience of Allah as He Says (what means): {And do not eat of that upon which the name of Allah has not been mentioned, for indeed, it is grave disobedience.} [Quran 6:121]
Therefore, so long as the animal is slaughtered by Muslims or People of the Book and there is no possibility of them killing the animal or using any other way which would make the animal not lawful (Haram), then it is permissible to eat it; however, if there is a possibility that it is not slaughtered according to Islamic rites, then it is not permissible to eat.
The same ruling applies for a place or a country where it is widely held by its people do not slaughter according to Islamic rites, in which case, it is also not permissible to eat it, since indeed the lawful is more sufficient and abounding to the Muslim than what is unlawful.
Allah knows best.
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