Bacon, Etc.

The first Muslims I met were not really upholding some ideals and standards of Islam. In the group, one had no problems drinking at all. Another felt bad working at a company where the job was packaging meat--some, pork. Another had this idea that pork was forbidden (haraam) in his home country but here in the USA it was allowed (halaal) so there wasn't really anything wrong with eating it... he went from totally refusing the pork fried rice at a Chinese place, to experimenting with a sausage patty at McDonald's.

I guess America will do that to some people--tempt them and trap them away from their religion.

But what is so tempting about pork?

Giving it up wasn't the hardest part of converting to Islam--for the most part it was really easy. Except for two things--I had always really loved waking up to the smell of bacon frying. And my mom made some really good BBQ (which here in NC is a pulled pork dish.) Giving up the bacon was the easier part, actually, and the BBQ harder because it hurt my mom's feelings that I wouldn't eat it.

But now, my roommate likes to cook beef bacon every now and again, and even though I used to love the smell growing up (which meant hot, fresh, breakfast for the whole family), now it just drives me nuts. She doesn't fry it in a pan, but she bakes it in the oven. I guess that lets the grease drip into the pan so it's a little lessy fatty? (As if it wasn't mostly a slice of fat to begin with...) Anyway, it still smells--and it's a smell that seems to take hours to clear out.

And even though it's just beef bacon--and therefore I guess it's halal, with no pork?--the smell just reminds me of something I've given up in Islam, and I don't want to feel any temptation to head back down that road.