Snowdrop

The following quotes are taken by a talk delivered by Shaikh Hamza Yusuf entitled "The Science of Shari'ah".
"Meat is not a necessity in Shari'ah, and in the old days most Muslims used to eat meat, if they were wealthy, like middle class-once a week on Friday. If they were poor-on the Eids."
"So traditionally Muslims were semi-vegetarians. The Prophet was, I mean, technically, the Prophet (SAWS) was in that category. He was not a meat-eater. Most of his meals did not have meat in them. And the proof of that is clearly in the Muwatta-when Sayyidina Umar says, 'Beware of meat, because it has an addiction like the addiction of wine.' And the other hadith in the Muwatta-there is a chapter called 'Bab al-Laham,' the chapter of laham, the chapter of meat. Both are from Sayyidina Umar. And Umar, during his khilafa, prohibited people from eating meat two days in a row. He only allowed them to eat [it] every other day. And the khalifa has that right to do that. He did not let people eat meat every day - he saw one man eating meat every day, and he said to him, 'Every time you get hungry you go out and buy meat? Right? In other words, every time your nafs wants meat, you go out and buy it?' He said, 'Yeah, Amir al-Mumineen, ana qaram,' which in Arabic, 'qaram' means 'I love meat'-he's a carnivore, he loves meat. And Sayyidina Umar said, 'It would be better for you to roll up your tummy a little bit so that other people can eat.'"
"Now Umar, if there was a prophet after the Prophet, it would have been Umar. And that is really verging on prophecy, that statement. Because if you study the modern meat industry, you will find out that a lot of the famine in the world is a direct result of the overconsumption of meat in countries like the United States and Canada and Europe, because the amount of grain needed to produce 1 pound of meat, right, is much greater than the amount you need to produce grain itself. And beef in particular-I really recommend Rifkin's book Beyond Beef. It's an extraordinary book. And it's interesting 'Baqara' is also a chapter of the Qur'an ('kill the cow'), because beef-eating societies just have massive impact on the environment, on natural resources, on all these things. And traditionally the Muslims were not cow-eaters, they were sheep and lamb [-eaters] when they did eat meat."

AQ

The only part that made me confused was meaning of "Baqarah" (Kill the cow) ... Baqaarah means just "cow" ... where did kill the cow come in there?

Also, the surah got it name based on the incident described in it from Bani Israel.

Azad

Just buy the recommended book 'Beyond Beef' and move on.

Snowdrop

I'm also confused...lol. I think the person who typed the article made a mistake. Allah hu Alim.