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Thread: Injurious Pigs?

  1. #1
    Axeman's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Injurious Pigs?

    I was reading Voltaire's philosophical dictionary and I noticed something strange. When Voltaire is writing about the need for laws to change due to circumstance and not be blindly bound by once rational laws due to tradition Voltaire brings up the Muslim prohibition of Pork and Wine as an example of this.

    Link

    *very first paragraph on the top of the page*


    I understand what Voltaire was saying philosophically, so I suppose this isn't a really important question but I am quite curious.


    Was there something about Arabian wine / pigs that was actually injurious in pre-islamic times that was unique to Arabia but not other areas to which Islam eventually expanded?

    Is this simply a bad translation?

    Did Voltaire just make it up?

    Is this a case of a word's meaning changing over time and it meaning something else ?



    Thanks an advance.

    -Axeman
    Last edited by Erebus Pasha; February 08, 2013 at 08:36 AM. Reason: shortened link

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  2. #2
    hellheaven1987's Avatar Comes Domesticorum
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    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    I bet he means it is harmful mentally; he probably reached that conclusion by observing Austria.
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    Gnostiko's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Quote Originally Posted by Axeman View Post
    Was there something about Arabian wine / pigs that was actually injurious in pre-islamic times that was unique to Arabia but not other areas to which Islam eventually expanded?
    The leading opinion is that because of the sparse flora of the Arabian peninsula, pigs' foraging habits would have led to more direct competition with humans.

    As for alcohol, I'd lump it in the same category as the Islamic preference for cats over dogs - an idiosyncracy of Muhammed transplanted onto his followers. I'd always imagined the proscription was aimed at curbing alcoholism, but then it was blown out of proportion until (all)alcohol was simply considered "evil".

  4. #4

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnostiko View Post
    The leading opinion is that because of the sparse flora of the Arabian peninsula, pigs' foraging habits would have led to more direct competition with humans.
    Which is ironic, since goats are actually quite bad for low-vegetation environments; they accelerate aridisation through their foraging habits.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Pork is can get bad very fast, especially in hot climates, when not properly salted or smoked, so probably the directives concerning pork have a sanitary backgorund. Note that the jews, living in a similar climate, also have no pork on their diet.
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  6. #6

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    ^^^ But that's true of all meats. The idea that pork spoils faster than mutton or beef is a dumb myth. If anything, tallow turns rancid slightly faster than lard.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Didn't ancient pork have more parasites than other meat?

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Why Islam though, you could also ask the same question to Jews.

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  9. #9

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Quote Originally Posted by irelandeb View Post
    Didn't ancient pork have more parasites than other meat?
    The only specific parasite pigs have is Trichinella (it actually isn't a truly 'specific' parasite, since it also commonly lives in rats), and it only regularly occurs when two conditions have simultaneously appeared: 1) pigs have fed on raw sewage + 2) pork (meat) has been undercooked. OTOH, sheep and cattle have the specific parasite family known as flukes (pigs generally have too short a digestive system for them to thrive). All the others (tapeworms etc.) are shared.
    Last edited by Slowpoke; February 14, 2013 at 03:33 AM.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    I'd guess tb. Swine are actually very susceptible to tb(all three variations bovine, avian, and human ) don't show symptoms as obviously as cattle and can spread it very quickly. Most other domesticated animals other than goats are highly resistant. Goats are susceptible to the bovine form but display more sign of infection, like cattle.

    Chickens also have a relatively high susceptibility to tb but the avian form doesn't spread to humans easily.

  11. #11
    Blau&Gruen's Avatar Civitate
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    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    @Axeman

    Voltaire is refering to a historic concept which claimed temperature as a factor responsible for diseases, mentalities and physiology. It's similar to the concept of the humores, the body fluids of the Renaissance and earlier just on a broader scale.
    Last edited by Blau&Gruen; February 18, 2013 at 01:51 PM.
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    Col. Tartleton's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Injurious Pigs?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnostiko View Post
    The leading opinion is that because of the sparse flora of the Arabian peninsula, pigs' foraging habits would have led to more direct competition with humans.

    As for alcohol, I'd lump it in the same category as the Islamic preference for cats over dogs - an idiosyncracy of Muhammed transplanted onto his followers. I'd always imagined the proscription was aimed at curbing alcoholism, but then it was blown out of proportion until (all)alcohol was simply considered "evil".
    I mean it got to the point that what's his name, the great general, DJ Khalid, within a generation of Mohammad's death used alcohol for hygiene topically and got in trouble until he argued successfully that a prohibition on it was completely retarded and not what Mohammad was talking about.

    Although it's not 100% clear, Jesus almost certainly preached against pork and alcohol although I think that got suppressed for the sake of converting the Romans.

    I don't trust desert prophets to tell me what's kosher. You know what I mean...

    I mean I'm American of British and Jewish descent so obviously I have the beef is king bias, but life without pork and alcohol is not going to happen.
    Last edited by Col. Tartleton; February 14, 2013 at 11:42 PM.
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