"Allah Meat" Amazes Muslims in Nigeria

Looking back on all my previous posts having anything to do with religion, I seem to pick on Christians rather extensively. If there's anything of which I can assure my readers, it's this: I am an equal-opportunity offender. With that in mind, I thought I'd write a bit about this story, despite it it being nearly a week old.

Not even followers of Allah are immune to pareidolia. As reported by BBC News, Muslims in northern Nigeria are gravitating to a restaurant in the city of Birnin Kebbi to catch a glimpse of their god's name allegedly inscribed on a piece of gristle. Fortunately avoiding what would most likely have been a gravely serious sacrilege, the restaurant owner noticed the sacred script just as he was about to eat the aforementioned tidbit of animal cartilage.

A subsequent search of the restaurant's kitchen miraculously turned up three more pieces of similarly inscribed meat! The holy cartilage has attracted thousands of the devote to the restaurant since it was discovered nearly two weeks ago. Owner Kabiru Haliru boasted of the important message his miraculous meat clearly imparts:

"'When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind,' he said."

Apparently, the BBC couldn't scrounge up even one skeptic to discount the script for what it truly is: a random arrangement of animal protein. Even Dr. Yakubu Dominic, a local vet (part of vet school is studying religious relics, right?) said the gristle "defied scientific explanation."

"'Supposing only one piece of meat was found then it would be suspicious, but given the circumstances there is no explanation,' he said."

In the interests of fairness, let's have a look at the meat in question and the word "Allah" written in Arabic script side-by-side:










The likeness is uncanny, isn't it? Yeah, not so much. For a religion where the most zealous freak out over a satirical depiction of their prophet, it's hard to believe some Muslims would compare a beautiful example of Arabic writing to a piece of meat resembling a brain, at best. I wonder how much fervor Muhammad appearing in food would ignite. Maybe he's not that powerful.