“As long as there are slaughterhouses,
there will be battlefields.”
Leo Tolstoy
Every year, humans kill more than 150 billion land and sea animals for food, operating as part of a system that is cruel, unhealthy and environmentally catastrophic. In many ways, the predatory mentality underlying our animal-based lifestyles is the source of our largest socio-economic and environmental problems.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Menu |||

Eating Misery
Few of us ever ponder the dark reality underlying our daily meals. Every year, hundreds of billions of land and sea animals are thoughtlessly massacred to satisfy our unnatural appetite for meat, dairy, eggs and other products. Our current eating habits rely on a culture of domination that forces us to disconnect from the core values that define our humanity, fostering a predatory mentality that reduces conscious, sentient beings to mere objects. Looking deeply, we realise that this fundamental violation influences every aspect of our daily lives, and is the root cause of our chronic inability to move past our various cultural predicaments. On a larger scale, it has given rise to a self-destructive global civilization that is leading itself and the planet to inevitable extinction.
Consequences
In addition to fostering violence and unawareness within our communities, breeding animals for food is destroying our planet at an alarming rate. Not only is it the leading cause of deforestation, pollution and resource waste, but it is also one of the key contributors to global warming. Even worse, raising animals for slaughter consumes the vast majority of the world’s grain stocks, making it the leading cause of global famines. One would almost hope that all this devastation is at least wrought out of necessity or for some supposed benefit to humanity. Alas, not only is the consumption of animal products entirely unnecessary, but it is in fact a leading cause of the most fatal chronic diseases plaguing our modern world, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and countless others.
The Way Forward
World peace begins on our plates. The cruelty underlying our daily meals is like a shadow that casts itself over our collective awareness as a society, influencing every aspect of our daily lives. Facing this shadow and making the conscious choice to evolve beyond it is a critical step in our efforts to achieve the equality and social harmony that continue to elude to us. The only way forward is for humanity to evolve toward a plant-based (vegan) lifestyle, one that extends our circle of compassion to include all living beings on this planet. If we are serious about creating a better world for ourselves and our children, our routine killing of animals must end. This is the first step in our long journey toward reclaiming our humanity and repairing the incalculable damage we have wrought on our planet.
the culture of domination
By conditioning its members to see themselves as natural predators, our culture cultivates a distorted reality in which supremacism, domination and systemic violence are considered inevitable by-products of the human experience. On a small scale, this warped worldview produces communities with inherent social disarray, and acts as a catalyst for other forms of discrimination like sexism, racism, classism and others. On a much larger scale, it has transformed us into a fundamentally self-destructive species that is perpetually plagued by chronic war and disharmony.
Killing for a living
Our animal-based lifestyles not only bring enormous suffering to billions of animals but also to the people we pay to kill them. Studies examining the psychological effects on humans who work in slaughterhouses have revealed startling findings. Slaughterhouse workers are not only exposed to a wide array of physical dangers, but the psychological aftermath of their work wreaks havoc on their lives in irrevocable ways. These men and women are trained to disconnect from the sentient beings they torture and kill, and this emotional dissonance manifests in countless forms of social maladies, such as domestic violence, social withdrawal, drug and alcohol abuse, severe anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorder.
the meat-medical complex
The consumption of animal products is one of the key contributors to our culture's most prevalent chronic diseases, such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and countless others. Our culture purposefully understates and distorts this documented connection, employing the most insidious tactics to keep the masses misinformed and diseased. Our animal-based lifestyles have thus become the driving forces behind a vast industrial complex that spans the ever-dominant meat and dairy industries, the medical establishment and the mass media.
an earth in distress
Animal agriculture is arguably the most destructive force on the planet, causing unparalleled pollution and wasting precious resources. For instance, herding animals for food accounts for more than 60 percent of worldwide deforestation — seven times the amount caused by modern real estate development. Growing livestock feed also consumes substantial amounts of water, fossil fuels and toxic pesticides, and is one of the largest causes of global warming. The devastating effects of our eating habits also extend to reach the deepest recesses of our oceans, where entire marine ecosystems are routinely depleted by commercial fishing operations.
a system of privilege
It takes almost 16 kilograms of grain to produce 1 kilogram of animal flesh, which is why 50 percent of the world’s corn, soybean, wheat and cotton crops (and 50 percent of the fish we haul in from our oceans) are fed to farmed animals instead of the 925 million people suffering from malnutrition around the globe. In a world where one in every six people goes hungry every day, this is a gross violation in which each and every one of us has a hand. Today, animal agriculture in the third world is monopolizing the best local land, undermining the local food supply and undercutting the efforts of the people to secure food self-reliance.
More than 70 billion land animals are raised and killed for food around the globe every year.
More than 2.7 trillion animals are pulled from the ocean every year.
More than 65,000 dolphins, whales and seals are killed as “by-catch” by fishing vessels around the globe every year.
More than 42 million people are killed by preventible diet-related diseases every year.
More than $6.5 trillion are spent on unnecessary healthcare around the globe every year.
More than 76 trillion gallons of water are consumed every year by animal agriculture.
Approximately 51 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture.
More than 45 percent of Earth's total land is consumed by animal agriculture.
More than 50 percent of the world's grain supply is fed to farmed animals raised for slaughter, even when 1 in 5 people suffers from malnutrition.
Approximately 91 percent of all amazon rainforest destruction is caused by animal agriculture.
More than 65 percent of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide are caused by livestock production.
More than 75 percent of the world's fisheries have been depleted due to overfishing.
"Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
Albert Einstein
“Vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarian habit. Every effort should be made to stop the wanton, cruel slaughter of animals, which must be destructive to our morals.”
Nikola Tesla
“I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.”
Mohandas Gandhi
“Thousands of people who say they love animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs.”
Jane Goodall
“We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.”
Albert Schweitzer
“While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”
George Bernard Shaw
A Radical Revolution
If one weighs all the evidence, it becomes painfully clear that a vegan lifestyle is the only solution that addresses the root cause of the current human condition. We humans are natural herbivores who are neither physically nor mentally designed to prey on other animals without dire consequences to our bodies and minds. By proclaiming ourselves guardians of freedom and yet committing senseless massacres against other beings, we are engaging in an egregious hypocrisy that permeates every aspect of our being. Given how deeply ingrained in our culture is the erroneous premise that we are superior to other lifeforms on this planet, a vegan lifestyle adopted on a mass scale is akin to a radical revolution that will forever redefine the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us.
Beyond Denial
Henry David Thoreau once said that "there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." His statement very much applies to our treatment of animals, which is undoubtedly the root of all our evils. So far, both the violence underlying our eating habits and its deleterious consequences have remained unseen to us as a culture, primarily due to the inconceivable level of denial with which we approach the issue. Our violence has also become institutionalized, be it through religion, science or our various cultural rituals, to the extent that the mere mention of the issue causes uneasiness or even anger. Unless we are prepared to have an open dialogue on the subject, there is no going back from the self-destructive path we have been walking for many millennia.
Taking Action
Cultural transformation is a slow but inevitable process. Any meaningful revolution begins on an individual scale. By moving past one’s cultural conditioning and modifying one’s worldview and habits, the individual becomes a powerful tool of cultural transformation, leading by example, self-awareness and conviction. From there, raising awareness on this important issue within one’s community becomes a much easier and more effective process. Today, the vegan revolution is taking the world by storm as many people are realizing the far-reaching ramifications of our supremacist attitude toward other species. Embracing veganism is the only solution that will allow us, in the words of Throeau, to strike at the root of evil as opposed to hacking at its branches.
Promoting a culture of
compassion, health and awareness.

Project Rahma was conceived to raise awareness on the far-reaching repercussions of humanity’s enslavement of animals for food and other uses. By demonstrating the fundamental connection between our attitudes toward animals and our larger cultural predicaments, the project aims to help communities worldwide evolve toward a more compassionate, healthful and sustainable lifestyle.

"Rahma" is an Arabic word meaning "compassion" and one that bears a substantial psycho-spiritual significance. The root of the word, “rahm,” literally means “womb,” which underscores the word’s essential connection to the feminine principle and its associated life-giving and life-sustaining elements. As a linguistic concept, it denotes love, nurturing, empathy and interconnectedness.

Project Rahma was founded by Jafar Irshaidat, a writer and animal rights activist from Jordan, and is currently receiving support from a number of dedicated activists from around the globe.

Copyright © 2015 Project Rahma
Website design by Jafar Irshaidat