Lawsuit: Restaurant hurt by ad saying it doesn't serve Muslim food

NORCROSS - The owner of a Pakistani restaurant claims a newspaper advertisement scared off many of his customers because it said his food does not meet Muslim dietary requirements. <br> <br> Karim Surani opened the Sabri Kabab House three months ago. He has filed a lawsuit accusing the Urdu Times of libeling him in an ad claiming the meat Surani serves is not halal, or legal according to the Islamic faith. <br> <br> When the ad ran a month after the restaurant opened, a customer came in and began shouting at him because he was afraid he had been eating non-halal meat. Surani told the customer the ad was wrong. <br> <br> For meat to be halal, the animal must be killed by a Muslim who slits its jugular vein and drains all blood from the carcass. Like kosher Jews, Muslims do not eat pork products. <br> <br> Experts say even nonobservant Muslims who drink alcohol, forbidden in Islam, would likely avoid non-halal meat. <br> <br> The text of the ad said it was placed by the Islamic Society of Atlanta, but that organization denies placing it. Surani says he thinks the publisher of the paper, Akhtar Awan, took out the ad himself as revenge for an unrelated dispute. <br> <br> The lawsuit says Surani has been losing business worth $25,000 a month since the ad was published.