In an effort to provide meat options to students like Ahmed, Harvard began supplying halal hotdogs and burgers for the grills in 2002. But Muslim students say the grill options are not filling the void left by meatless lunches.

Ahmed orders from the grill once or twice a week at the most. “It wouldn’t be healthy to eat a halal hamburger or hotdog every day,” she says, noting that grilled chicken would be a healthier option.

Rashid says the halal grill options are a good start in Harvard’s efforts to accommodate students who keep halal.

In order to provide halal food that meets religious standards, Harvard dining services must ensure that the halal meat does not come into contact with other meat, according to Rashid. This requires staff to be particularly cautious in their preparations, switching gloves between dealing with halal and non-halal meat and sectioning off part of the grill, he says.

“I came today and I looked at the grill to see if there was an area that was a bit cleaner, and there wasn’t,” says Rashid, who chose not to order meat that day.

Yousuf says that he has also had negative experiences at the grill.

He says some employees did not recognize the significance of his halal dining restrictions. A meeting with the Leverett Dining Hall manager, he says, resulted in a refresher workshop for the staff on halal cooking.

“If you ask the dining hall staff, they are very helpful,” Yousuf says. “They’ll be very careful and change their gloves.”

‘YOU HAVE HILLEL’

Last year, Yousuf—who was then director of development for HIS—says he asked HUDS for a list of all dishes involving pork and pork byproducts.

“They said it’s very hard to have a list because the ingredients keep changing,” he says. He says he contacted them repeatedly for the list, but did not hear back.

Instead, Yousuf asked HUDS to consider identifying halal foods on the name cards, next to the vegan and vegetarian signifiers. That request was also turned down because, Yousuf was told, it would open the door to listing ingredients relevant to any and all eating habits, including any allergies and other religious preferences.

Students have been left to their own devices to identify halal food—literally. Rashid developed an app in CS50 to determine which foods were safe for Muslims to eat.

Crista Martin, a spokeswoman for HUDS, says that the University is in the process of making it easier to access halal meals.

“In the near future we hope to implement a web-based menu search tool that will be useful to Muslim students in identifying any food cooked with alcohol,” she said in a statement. Martin also pointed to the grill options, the two weekly meals, and kosher dining—which meets halal requirements if it is not prepared in alcohol. All dining halls are equipped with a kosher fridge and all students have access to the Hillel dining hall.