a) Blessed with name of Allah (SWT) - if slaughtered without Allah's Name or any other name then it is haram
b) Slaughtering technique has to be bled - i.e. zabiha.
Just to add to what Psyah is saying, even if a hard core Muslim does not follow these rules then the meat prepared by him is not halal, so we should not fool ourselves with the permission of eating meat prepared by Ahle-kitaab. They have to follow the above 2 requirements which they dont nowadays so you cant eat the meat prepared by them.
Something very interesting & muslims (especially Pakistanis) to ponder over is:
Are Pakistanis sure that they are following the 'halal' way of slaughtering an animal?
I happened to witness in Pakistan slaughtering of a few animals in a 'supposedly halal' way. The 'Islamic' butchers placed quite a blunt knife at the animals throat & kept 'rubbing' it over & over against the throat. It seemed to me that the 'Islamic' butcher had no clue where the vein of the animal where he was supposed to put an 'exceptionally sharp' knife was. I have only read a few essential guidelines about slaughtering an animal the 'Islamic way' & I can safely say that the Islamic butcher did not follow any of those except for saying Allah's name.
His knife was very blunt that I could clearly see it caused the animal much pain while he slaughtered it & that pain caused the animal to struggle more because the blunt knife caused the butcher take more time to finally cut the vein.
I also am doubtful if muslim butchers give enough time for all the blood to drain out of the slaughtered animal's veins before cutting it further into pieces. Hence, my understanding is that even our so called 'Islamic' butchers are not doing a proper job & the whole Pakistani nation is made to eat meat which is not 'halal' because the slaughter procedure is not being followed the proper way as it is supposed to be.
Apart from that, the chickens that we eat. Does anyone know of the diet these chickens are fed? What does it contain?
Before my post is misunderstood by fools, I am not saying that such muslim butchers are the only ones who exist through out pakistan. But what I am trying to emphasize on is that just like I co-incidently witnessed that 'unislamic' slaughter, how many more just like him are out there slaughtering animals in a very unislamic way & how many segments of Pakistani society are eating that meat? Ofcourse, we do have some problematic people who are not doing things the right way for Pakistan. Are those the victims?
So, Pakistanis really need to make sure that the meat they are eating is properly slaguhtered as per the islamic guidlines & in a halal way.
Yes, it is something to eat halal, but it is another to eat Islamic.
With all the Sunnahs and further requirements other than to two major ones include treatment of the animals, health at time of slaughter, minimisation of pain, care for the animal ...
Free range and organic are sold today as though they are luxury product. But true Islamic food is free range and organic from the get go.
Yes, the requirements such as a healthy animal, minimization of pain & allowing a complete drain of blood from veins before cutting it further into pieces to cook & eat. Ignoring those important guidelines is surely going to effect the health, behaviour, chemical balance / imbalance in the brain / body also of the one who consumes that meat. So we really need to pay attention to really start attempting to do things in a halal way rather than do all the haram deeds but claim they are halal under the pride of being born muslims.