I am a Muslim from Austria. You know that animals are not slaughtered by the Islamic method. The Europeans kill them with a gun or with electricity. Now I want to know if I can eat their meat. You should know that most Europeans are not really Christians. Thanks. As salamu alaikum!

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds.  I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

If the person who slaughters the animal is not a Muslim or a person from the People of the Book, then eating the meat of the animal is forbidden because in this case it is considered a dead animal; Allaah Says (what means): {This day [all] good foods have been made lawful, and the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you and your food is lawful for them.}[Quran 5:5] The food here refers to the slaughtered meat.

Similarly, if the animal is killed by a gun, or by electricity, or by drowning, or by any other un-Islamic method, then it is not permissible to eat it;  Allaah Says (what means): {Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allaah and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a headlong fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars.}[Quran 5:3]

Finally, we advise you to seek to eat lawful food, and we ask Allaah to enable you to do whatever pleases Him and guide you to His right path.

Allaah Knows best.