Global Perspectives on Halal Slaughter: A Critical Review of Animal Welfare, Meat Quality, Islamic Ethics and Regulatory Divergence

Abstract

Halal meat now moves through supply chains that cross religious, scientific and legal boundaries, and the method of slaughter sits where these boundaries meet. This review synthesizes evidence published mainly between 2013 and 2026 on halal slaughter with and without stunning, covering bleeding efficiency, stress physiology, meat quality, Islamic ethics, consumer knowledge and regulation. Peer-reviewed studies from Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and ScienceDirect were combined with standards, fatwas and court decisions and analyzed in five themes. In halal-slaughtered cattle, blood loss rose from 3.55% of live weight after 5 min of bleeding to 3.99% after 15 min, and longer bleeding gave a more compact myofibrillar structure and firmer meat without changing pH or color. Head-only reversible electrical stunning did not reduce blood loss in lambs or goats, whereas head-to-back stunning in goats lowered bleeding efficiency and reduced oxidative and microbial stability. Field data from Indonesian abattoirs and Eid al-Adha sacrifices locate the largest welfare risks before and around the cut: roping and casting, blunt knives and delayed loss of consciousness, with 57% of Bali cattle moving or trying to stand after the neck cut. Islamic sources place welfare inside the halalan tayyiban requirement, yet surveys show that many Muslim consumers believe certification covers farm practices it does not address. Regulatory positions range from mandatory pre-cut stunning in several European jurisdictions, upheld by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020 and the European Court of Human Rights in 2024, to conditional acceptance of reversible stunning in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Gulf states and rejection in Pakistan. The stunning debate has drawn attention away from controllable points such as restraint, knife sharpness, cut position and slaughterer competence. Harmonization is more likely to come from shared, measurable welfare outcomes that religious authorities can verify than from agreement on stunning alone.