Meeting a high demand among Muslim residents and tourists, restaurants in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, are expanding to satisfy a growing appetite for halal foods.

“Halal foods are currently delivered only within the 23 wards of Tokyo, but we want to expand the delivery area,” a member of the Halal Deli’s staff told The Japan Times.

Halal Deli is one of new restaurants in Tokyo that opened recently to meet a growing demand for halal food from Muslim tourists from neighbouring Indonesia and other Muslim countries.

The halal restaurants supply Malaysian, Indonesian and Turkish foods.

Their most frequent customers are companies that have Muslim employees and visitors as well as tourists.

The Japanese government recently made tourism from Southeast Asia a priority and is preparing to relax visa requirements to lure more people from the region.

The remarkable change comes as new studies revealed that the number of Muslims worldwide is expected to exceed two billion in 2030.

The Japanese government efforts to ease access to halal food guaranteed a growing share of Muslim tourism.

Islam began in Japan in 1920s through the immigration of a few hundreds of Turkish Muslims from Russia following the Russian revolution.

Japan today is home for a thriving Muslim community of about 120,000 Muslim, among nearly 127 million in the world's tenth most populated country.

The concept of halal, meaning permissible in Arabic has traditionally been applied to food; however, now other goods and services can also be certified as halal, including cosmetics, clothing, pharmaceuticals and financial services.

Muslims should only eat meat from livestock beheaded according to Islamic law.

Muslims do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat filthy and unhealthy to eat. Alcohol is also totally forbidden for Muslims.

Courtesy of OnIslam.net
HK