Muslim immigrant fills niche raising goats on Virginia farm

Mukit Hossain drove up to a large Centreville home one day last week, rummaged in his Jeep Cherokee and pulled out two plastic bags. Looking harried after spending two hours on Interstate 95, he hurried up the driveway and called out to the couple waiting inside.

On the granite island in their kitchen, he spread out packages wrapped in white paper and labeled "Hams," "Neck" and "Ribs." The lady of the house, Seema Khan, handed him a glass of water. "So, now, did you slaughter the goat by yourself?" she asked.

"Yes, I did," Hossain said proudly.

It was his first delivery in Northern Virginia, made just a couple of weeks after he had e-mailed fliers to area Muslims informing them that he was selling naturally raised, humanely slaughtered, home-delivered goat meat that was halal, or in accordance with Islamic law.

What the e-mail recipients didn't know was that Hossain was doing all the raising, slaughtering and delivering himself.

Like many of Hossain's customers, the Khans had known him as a civic activist and telecommunications executive. Hossain, 49, who emigrated from Bangladesh in the 1970s, was living in the Cascades section of Loudoun County when he became concerned that his work on behalf of day laborers was affecting his business relationships and that his daughters were becoming more interested in designer labels than core values. By 2008, he was wondering about the path his life had taken.

"I thought, 'There's got to be something better I can do rather than run this corporate rat race,' " said Hossain, a compact and energetic man. "We were thinking about doing something with the land, and it occurred to me that there are close to 300,000 Muslims in Northern Virginia. The majority eat halal," he said, and to the best of his knowledge, no organic halal goat meat was being produced in Virginia.

Abdullah Wasay, who manages Madina, a Middle Eastern market in Herndon, said the demand for halal goat meat is high, especially among Indian and Pakistani customers or those seeking especially lean meat.

"Ten or 12 years ago, there were only a few customers for goat, but now lots of customers are buying goat," Wasay said. The store went from selling about 10 goats a week a decade ago to 50 now, Wasay said, although it has become harder to find high-quality meat as farms have been sold to local developers.

Although lamb is heavily consumed by Middle Easterners, Hossain said, "if you're looking at Africa or anywhere east of Pakistan, goat is very popular."

Still, when Hossain sold his four-bedroom house and moved his family to a 15-acre farm near Fredericksburg in late 2008, some people in Bangladesh questioned his sanity. He had never lived in a rural area, and goat farming was not how most would-be immigrants envisioned life in the United States.

"Some folks think I have completely lost it," he said. "A friend said, 'Why would you get a degree from Duke if you were going to become a farmer?' " Even his wife, Sabrina, an accounting student raised in Kuwait and Canada, wondered whether it was a good idea. (There was some precedent for Hossain's decision: His grandfather, a prominent lawyer in Bangladesh, had at the height of his career given it all up to become a farmer. Everyone thought he had lost it, too.)