I guess we vegetarians just have to miss out on the ritual though. Darn.

From Wikipedia:

According to the laws of ?ab??ah halal, certain prerequisites must be met before an animal is slaughtered.
* The animal must not be a forbidden substance as per the Quran.
* The slaughter itself must be done by a sane (mentally competent) adult Muslim. Some Muslims also consider it acceptable to eat the meat slaughtered by “People of the Book” (Arabic: Ahl al-Kit?b, i.e, Christians and Jews?) as stated in Surah Al-Maa’idah, Ayat 5. The name/praise of GOD Almighty must be read before sacrificing the animal. Therefore, since Christians do not read anything before slaughtering the animal, their food is not considered halal. (They use to sacrifice the animals while mentioning GOD Almighty’s name/praise in the past). Most Sunni Muslims do consider Kosher meat to be Halal, and this has been accepted since the times of Mohammed.

Several other conditions are also stated: the knife’s blade should be extremely sharp yet not be sharpened in front of the animal, the animal must not be slaughtered in front of other animals , and the animal’s eyes and ears must be checked to ensure its health and suitability for slaughter. If it is deemed to be healthy, it is given water to drink (to quench its thirst). The animal should then be stood to face the Qibla. (Mecca)
, and the actual slaughter can begin.

Sounds like a religious rite to me………And yet I never see NY finest raiding the store…