Regarding the rationale behind the prohibition of pork in Islam, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, an Islamic scholar explains as thus:
“As Muslims we believe that God alone has the complete knowledge of what is good for humans and what is harmful for them. Science does not have all knowledge; it is ever searching for new information and discovering new things.
So we shun pork for God tells us that it is not suitable for human consumption. We also believe that it is always possible for science to disclose new information about the harmful effects of eating pork that it does not possess now.”
Elaborating on the scientific side for why pork is forbidden, we’d like to cite the words of Dr. Zakir Naik, the president of Islamic Research Foundation, Mumbai. He said the following:
“Eating of pork can cause no less than seventy different types of diseases. A person can have various helminths, like roundworm, pinworm, hookworm, etc. One of the most dangerous is Taenia Solium, which in a layman’s terminology is called tapeworm. It harbors in the intestine and is very long. Its ova, i.e. eggs, enter the blood stream and can reach almost all the organs of the body. If it enters the brain it can cause memory loss. If it enters the heart it can cause heart attack and if it enters the eye it can cause blindness. If it enters the liver it can cause liver damage. It can damage almost all the organs of the body.
Another dangerous helminths is Taenia Trichuriasis. A common misconception about pork is that if it is cooked well, these ova die. In a research project undertaken in America, it was found that out of twenty-four people suffering from Taenia trichuriasis, twenty two had cooked the pork very well. This indicates that the ovas present in the pork do not die under normal cooking temperature.
Pork has fat building material:
Pork has very little muscle building material and contains excess of fat. This fat gets deposited in the vessels and can cause hypertension and heart attack.
The pig is one of the filthiest animals on earth:
The pig is one of the filthiest animals on earth. It lives and thrives on muck, filth and dirt. In the villages they don’t have modern toilets and the villagers excrete in the open air. Very often excreta are cleared by pigs.
Some may argue that in advanced countries like Australia, pigs are bred in very clean and hygienic conditions. Even in these hygienic conditions the pigs are kept together in sties. No matter how hard you try to keep them clean they are filthy by nature. They eat and enjoy their own as well as their neighbor’s excreta. ”