1. Journey

First, let me start by saying that as an Arab Muslim of both Moroccan and Lebanese descent I have eaten my fair share of meat, fish and animal byproducts. There used to be a time when I actually looked down on people who would avoid the consumption of these products.

About two years ago I was going through a personal struggle in my life and as a Muslim (no matter if you are practicing or not) your faith is always intertwined with such a personal struggle whether you want it to be or not. I was thinking about my personal relationship with Allah (God) and what judgement that we as humans would receive when we meet our maker given the state of the world we live in due to the damage we caused.

My main struggle came from the way that we as humans carry ourselves in this world, how we simply take from the soils of this earth (and its living organisms) without caring even the slightest about giving back to it. We abuse and manipulate each other all in an attempt to justify our merciless greed  and I could no longer continue 'living a lie' for lack of a better term.

One day I was on the train and a question started popping up in my head. During the entire train ride the same question started repeating over and over again and it would only stop until I answered it. Can I honestly call the animal industry halal (lawful by god) after seeing the everyday reality of wide scale farming, animal abuse/imprisonment and also the excess of greenhouse gas emissions that come with it? The answer for me was a very convincing no and that was the last day that I consumed meat, poultry and fish and I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

2. First Step

I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian at a time when plant-based lifestyles started to become a mainstream hype. Instead of following the masses and experimenting with plant-based alternatives as a social experiment I decided to take a more permanent step towards this way of life.

There was only one way for me (personally) to achieve that and that is to focus on my personal 'why'. This is the main factor that should be considered in any life changing decision (according to myself) if you are willing to pursue it long-term. Since it's the only thing strong enough to help you push through difficult struggles in life. For me personally the idea of slaughtering an animal or using its bodily fluids as food is not wrong per se. For me it was more so about the way that we as humans claim animal lives, well-being and habitat for our own perverted habits and to assert our dominion over other living beings (ourselves included) on this beautiful and highly endangered planet.

Whenever I think of this reality it makes me cringe because the holy book I subscribe to teaches me another lesson.

Among these many lessons is a specific line from the 55th verse (Al-Rahman - The Beneficient) of the Quran that helped me take the final step:

“And the earth, He has assigned it to all living creatures” --> (Quran Verse 55 Line10).

3. Final Step

After a year and a half as a lacto-ovo vegetarian I started to go through the same struggles I did before I started this journey.

There were two main reasons for that:

1. Health: I noticed that as a vegetarian I started out living very healthy but after six months something shifted and I was mainly (about 90%) living off of milk chocolate, cheese, eggs and other snacks and chips containing whey powder (made from cheese). This had a negative impact on my health (both physical and mental). At first I started to doubt whether or not I had made the right choice to become a vegetarian but after a while I realised that it was the appropriate time for me to take the second (and final) step in my journey.

2.  Hypocrisy: I became a vegetarian with a clear intent to no longer support the meat industry but that was before I realised the true extent of it and how deeply it is rooted in this world. I had no idea that dairy and cheese was also such a big factor when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and when I read how cows were treated to produce an excess of milk it sickened me to a point of no return. And due to my increased consumption of animal byproducts I realised that I was still contributing to this nightmare in a different way. I was struggling with the hypocrisy of my decisions until one day I couldn't take it anymore and I decided to no longer eat any animal byproducts as well. 

Upon doing so everyone was asking me why and after a long brainstorming session I came up with a simple response that I then translated to Arabic:

# تكريما لله الذي منحنا هذا الكوكب الجميل.

# Takrimaan lilah aladhi manahana hdha alkawkab aljamila.

# In honor of Allah (God) who graced us with this beautiful planet.

4. Identity Label + Visual Representation

Even though I stopped consuming animal byproducts I still don't call myself a vegan. For the first two weeks before I learned anything about the label I did. But personally I find it very hard to adopt the vegan identity label as a muslim. Within the vegan mindset there is a very strong ideological baseline that (for me) clashes with the very strong ideological baseline of  my faith and how I define it that is why I prefer to define myself as Plant-Based.

"SIDEBAR" --> Please note that this does not mean that I think it is impossible to consider yourself both muslim and vegan as I don't subscribe to telling people how they should live their lives or how they should label their own personal identity and faith. --> "SIDEBAR"

Seeing as how I adopted a plant-based lifestyle but not the vegan identity label I personally wanted to create something adjacent to the existing logo but still make it a little different. I started with the European vegetarian union logo, I removed the left side of the V-label and replaced it by duplicating the right side this would the Plant-Based V-label that I would use in my design.

Then I started to experiment with this label in countless different ways until I created a series of variations that I could use in my design. The point of the image that I wanted to create is to highlight the Arabic label of Plant-Based (Nabati) and also to create a green-filled image that resembles the feelings I have in my head when I think about a Plant-Based revolution (see slideshow below).

For those who read the whole story of my journey: Congratulations! That's something that a lot of people have stopped doing in these modern times :p