Loading ...It’s a long and tedious story, mired in the bureaucracy of at least some part of the big-breasted titular leaders of the Islamic world, or so they say … Yet of the 12 international halal certification bodies I had contacted (this includes a national halal institute) with regards to the quality of research — both quantitative and qualitative — conducted in order to establish the standards represented by the halal stamp, the depth of understanding as to the essence of the Qur’an and the context as well as the qualifications of the staff, only seven got back to me.
The first three were generous enough to ask what was wrong with sludge as fertiliser, even if deemed toxic. One said: “If I had to declare this toxic stuff like fertiliser haram, what products would we certify?”
I mentioned to him the verses measure for measure, those relating to the phenomena of creation as a God-willed sustenance that should be protected as a resource entrusted to man and myriad others detailing the economics of the ecology in terms of socio-political implications … I spoke to a wall. His eyes and ears closed, filled with cement and indifference.
“Talk to the Almighty himself,” he said.
One of the South African versions of the halal institutes has a website slathered with righteous if sincere platitudes and convictions, extensively quoting Imam Ghazzali, the Prophet (SAW) and other prominent persons, taken for the most part out of context. The South African version, of course, does no more than most others to clarify the situation. In fact, the strength of the institutions in South Africa has allowed for the temporalisation of fixed and distorted interpretations that have no relevance but have nonetheless been imposed, bifurcating the truth.
A good example is Imam Ghazzali, a jurist and theologian who lived in the 12th century, mentioned on the website of the national institution, apparently in support of its claims concerning the characteristics that constitute the foundation of the halal stamp — and its legitimacy. But it was this same Imam Ghazzali who stated that the taksis or reductionism of Islam to the status of religion, cultivated by a false portrayal of the sciences or fiqh as that of religious ritualism alone, is unlawful.
Perhaps they should take the quotes off? Perhaps there should be mass resignation?
One of my questions was, of course, whether this institution had, within its ranks, scientists that studied the ongoing effects of pesticides and other toxic treatments … no response. Many days. Months. The lifetime of ants …
One Egyptian aide to the aide to the aide of the Grand Mufti said that as long he doesn’t see or smell the fertiliser/sludge, acknowledge the concept of GM food or think about climate change and deforestation, he is fine.
This sludge is, of course, none other than the by-products of multinationals, comprising vast quantities of heavy-metals poisons such as lead, cadmium and the killer mercury, industrial toxins, and toxic organic and inorganic compounds such as herbicides — in other words, sludge that is too toxic to dump and is subsequently relabelled as fertiliser once the waste is bought out by a fudger or an MNC that deals in such murky and viscous business.
It kills the Earth after a slow and brutal rape, mimicking the same behaviour in the human body, only to result in various types of illnesses caused by environmental pollution such as heavy-metal poisoning, congenital malformations, and various types of known and unknown cancers.
A short tale:
The founder of Phoenix Environmental Institute recently exchanged information with an environmental activist back from an investigative quest in Iraq. He documented more than 7 000 cases of mutations concerning the flora and fauna of Iraq by substances such as DU (depleted uranium) that had been showered on Iraq, culminating in bunches of grapes growing in the shapes of large eggplants with multiple, nipple-like formations.
The Iraqis of course have to dine on these large mammaries … naturally the founder immediately communicated these findings to specific persons who currently form the upper apex of the scientific world, only to be told that institutions such as the Pentagon that regularly lose billion-dollar fighter jets had yet to address such insignificant strands of thought as the effects of war on the environment. The founder did the next best thing and contacted a lawyer; case pending …
How is it relevant? The military-industrial complex that funds scientific research is at the root of most scientific discoveries, from the engine of the Porsche to the science of amputations, organ transplants and genetic experimentation during the time of the Brown Shirts, documentation of genomes and testing of ecological weapons of warfare such as in Vietnam and Cambodia … One of these weapons was known as Agent Orange — otherwise known as the Agent of Death, used to destroy the foliage of the guerrilla fighters who hid in the jungles for refuge; a safe place from which to strike, and if be, a safe place in which to die.
Agent Orange is actually a herbicide that uses the same active compounds that comprise modern herbicides, sold by the very same architect — Monsanto, also the manufacturer and distributor of GM seeds, patenting life and locking it up in seed banks, mass-producing just 1 000 multinational-required cash crops …
It is not just the knowledge of inherited agriculture locked up, but the soul of the ecology and our own.
The mullahs, however, saw no reason to get themselves involved in such a situation, stating that they would continue to lick and stamp a sign that gave people the false insinuation that God was behind such products, and by implication, the multinationals who rape the Earth, the governments that let them do it and the bastards that provide the cloak of legitimacy.
Only one seriously considered it but he was quickly overruled. The majority were more or less interested to know what Islam had to do with the science of the products, giggling and coughing, perhaps even picking their noses …
It goes without saying that there is no such thing as a halal stamp; that is, using the name of God to legitimise not the product, the manufacturing process, the policies of the brand and its ecological and sociopolitical ramifications, but rather the actuality of an institution that is as irrelevant within the context of Islam as Bush is to world peace. Not simply irrelevant, but destructive. Dangerous.
Islam, the spirit of which I feel denotes the active move towards peace, is not a religion that can be interpreted as it is now, with the subsequent ban on thought and the emphasis of the rigid ritualisms, acting as the root upon which many opportunistic and extraneous elements such as the current familial monarchs of the GCC countries are based — hijacking Mecca and stamping a brand on it, that of the royal family.
They deliberately misrepresent the historicity, root and principles of the sharia, which has few fixed “laws” and many routes through which society can be constructed, with different techniques to suit the dynamic nature of the human nature — itself authentic and recognised as a force of change — for better or worse.
But the truth is that Muslim people have very little concept or knowledge that is direct and has an impact on the quality of their own life, not merely that part of them which seeks to quell the guilt that quietly and gradually grows to dominate the mind of the one who knows he has stripped away and savaged the purpose of his own life.
It is these gaps and cracks and gaping potholes of the human nafs or the being in totality, mind, body and soul, that render such nafs so vulnerable that the vultures move in … feeding on the carcasses of the slow and the spiritually sloth-like, the indifferent, the absent, the narcotised.
They present themselves as the leading strand of scholarly and learned Islamic interpretive thought, moulding their faces on to the brands of those institutions that justify their existence as the authentic paradigm of Islam. But such is the materialist reductionism of which so much of the West is accused, and so many Muslims are complicit. The nature of Islam and the science of it dehydrated to ashes and scattered on the grave of what once was …
In this way, the ijma (majority opinion) is commercialised and sold to the highest bidder while the doors to ijtihad (individual thought) are closed and sealed, before being buried. Khalas. Finish.
I recently told a journalist: “It was ironic to realise the period in which the Madressah was created as an institute of complete learning in the 11th century was coincidentally the same period which saw the advances made by the Muslims concerning the physical sciences, ie geology, biology, marine, physics etc, slowly come to a grinding halt …”
Simultaneously, it was in the 11th century, that the Occident began to absorb and assimilate the knowledge of the Muslims.
Sure, the residue of our knowledge lasted for another two centuries, the momentum was strong, how could it not? But those two centuries in which we rode the last train of knowledge, conscious of our Islam and the implications of Islam lived, was a train going steadily downhill. On our way down, because the scenery and decor of the train was so beautiful and intoxicating, we never bothered to look out the window. We lost ourselves to ourselves.
Had we perhaps glanced for even a second out of the gilded window, we would have seen the world and with it, the other train — that of what we consider the Occidentalists — going steadily uphill …
We should ask ourselves why it was that when immigration to our country was restricted, the apartheid forces deliberately allowed for the “village idiots” from India to enter our country and train the Muslim minds? Did the accompanying mentality of the caste system, the fact that Botha called the Muslims a “definite threat” to apartheid, the total ignorance of the Muslims and the Muslim leaders — cemented in stupidity by the village idiots, as well as the benefits that many Indian businesses derived (over the black peoples) as a buffer race — act as an incentive?
It could well be that there was a symbiotic relationship between the religious idiots and the apartheid structures … mutually beneficial appendages.
Did not the leader of the (then) MJC say that Imam Haroon — a freedom fighter from the Cape — deserved to be tortured and killed in prison because he was a trouble maker?”
She did not seem too interested in what was written, but to be fair, she was actually working on a book on Muslims in the media. I wonder why I find it impossible even to consider the state of Muslims in the world today, wounded and defensive, feeling as if all the world owes them something. I feel that same rage, but it is directed instead at those who desire and wish and claim without the struggle that defines such a realisation. The Qur’an states that it must be read only in context and with intense reflection … that Man will not get but that he works for it. That Salah must be tangible, a lived ideal — and are the words “Guide us to the right path” not said during the first Surah Fatiha — the key to the faith?
“Guide us”, of course, means the world. In its entirety. How dare these men claim such a title as Alim when they care for nothing but their own narratives? How dare they associate the name of God with a product that has tortured the Earth?
These days the halal stamp opens and closes the markets of 1,6-billion people … big money, friends. Big money.
The mullahs are known (or should be known) as the rentboys of print and consumer capitalism and the mistresses of “free” trade. This, of course, indicates the inverted nature of the word nowadays. Perhaps to honour the integrity of language we should call them gigolos and whores.
Yet it may be that Muslim societies built their identities on certain fixed and frozen interpretations that allude to the shell or crust of religion, especially in this age. It may even be that such was the result after the emergence from colonialism when all the world was alien, threatening and invasive … The mullahs use vulnerability to centralise their all-pervasive yet subtle dominance of thought, preying on those who have no understanding of the concept or spirit of the Qur’an, nor would they wish too.
The power of the mullah lies in the facade of illusions — thus the stamp.
In reality, few if any of their products would be halal because of the toxic pesticides, the hormones, antibiotics, animal by-products — that is, animals grown specifically to be fed to other animals, herbivores that cannot digest the “foreign” bodies of protein and so forth.
The political economy from which such products have been processed and the closed-door policy of multinationals who hang governments like puppets on a string add to the garish illusion of a free world.
But to admit this would mean that Muslims (or those who submit to Aslama, the active working towards peace) would be on the front line of the war against economic hammers such as the IMF, ecologically destructive policies such as cash-cropping and toxic sludge that is relabelled fertiliser.
This means the men who lead such institutions would have to lead a resistance and not cash in. Obviously, they are not for the job. In fact, the job is not for them. Perhaps in a hut somewhere in the middle of a village in India (no dissing India).
This — nature as tabi, with the realisation or expression of nature as Tabia, corresponds to the reality of rahman (that which is undoubted and complete in itself) and rahim ( the self-expression of such a nature that allows for the perception, manifested in the natural dispositions of the living).
In the Qur’an it is often said that everything on Earth is halal or natural; the episteme of the word halal draws on the phenomena or essence of that which is immutable in its own right, good, natural, pure and without contamination, while the world haram (forbidden) alludes to the destructive effects of GM food (patented genomes or life modifications that disrupt and alter the nature of the living, the effects of which debilitates the economy, the indigenous ecology and is possible only through the manipulation of state-craft using institutions such as the IMF).
But why then have so many apparently Muslim countries and citizens allowed and in many cases subscribed to the secularisation and atomisation of the Earth to be viewed from solely an economic perspective? Can we staple a price tag to the innocent, to beauty, to the value of love felt between two people but which we may not be a part of?
To the fierce and immense majesty of the natural world?
The indigenous ecology is essentially what the Qur’an considers to be the “living” or “second” Ayah of Allah, what is Shara’a — the divine law, manifest and palpably distinctive; it is what must be reinterpreted in every age with its relative exigencies, technologies and premises in order that the enabling of the law or sharia — the etymology lending itself to the word knowledge — may be relevant and not simply a ritualism that allows for the frozen, apocryphal and irrelevant interpretations of Islam that do not allow for the “living” of it.
But today, all of Islamic thought concerning religious matters lies in the hands of those constituting an elitist circle of “scholars” or “mullahs” whose very words take precedence over ijtihad or individual thought.
In fact, contained within the Qur’an are fundamental guidelines that are qaddara (or predetermined), pertaining to the structural and shifting paradigms of civilisation or the Ummah Wahidah (community united in Oneness or Tawhid.)
There are more than 900 ayahs in the Qur’an as well as various parables relating to the use of water alone, as a political commodity, a source of life and of conflict, with multiple allusions concerning the devastation caused by hydro-power, articulated in the historically actualised story of Saba and the Dam of Marib, which collapsed due to ecological fragmentation.
Or the story of Thamud/Al Hijr — a powerful society of which the remains can be seen in the city of Petra, a giant colossal structure of stone in the middle of a desert and one of many caravan stops in which the traveller or trader seated on his camel, stood; dwarfed, awed and petrified at the sight of an entire meticulously carved city of slid rock …
Such a tribe controlled significant portions of the invaluable Middle Eastern trade and was extinguished by the symbolic act of slaughtering a she-camel, an innocent creature that falls into the realm of the Waqf — belonging to Allah alone, entrusted to Man to do just acts.
Yet each and every day billions of cattle, chickens and other such creatures are considered by the world to be either animal products (for human consumption) or animal-by products (herbivorous animals that are fed to other herbivores). This of course results in a multitude of diseases such as Sars — a pathogen that originates in the cash-cropped world of animal products — when a baby chick, debeaked, legs splayed, choking on ammonia and force-fed antibiotics, hormones and animal by-products, is grown to his full weight at only six weeks old.
Whether this chicken has a stamp matters nothing, especially when held against the quality of its life. The questions we need to ask ourselves when buying products, clothing, cars and so forth is whether we have abused the trust or waqf — essentially maintaining the only original quality endowed from God to Man; that of free choice. Integrity.
The ritualism proudly displayed and certified halal at the end of this chicken’s life is refuted by the days, hours, minutes and seconds of an existence played out in the dark only to fall in darkness.
There are, in comparison, just 215 verses or ayahs relating to the physicality of prayer as a social and individual requirement … yet there are more than 1 400 ayahs solely laid down regarding economics, with special emphasis on what could be considered fair trade and organic institutions, operative techniques of production, manufacturing, structural adjustment and so forth devoid of highly destructive and exploitive methods such as pesticides and hormones, the “usual” ingredients in the cash-cropped economies of the Third World, held firmly in place by the First World countries.
Because I am a Muslim, it falls within my rights to question those who have given themselves the mandate to determine the narrative upon which Islamic society is built. Islamic society is always theocentric at its root (as opposed to theocratic).
It is my right to evidence their lies, to document and display it, to designate the mullahs as a very manipulative, exploitive and dangerous element in current Muslim societies, working hand in hand with the corrupt monarchs of the GCC, buttressing each other in a myth made real on the concrete banks of decisions taken behind closed doors; these myths no different from the economic fascism of the World Bank and their ilk; no different from those who lead the Inquisition and no different from the mullahs at the last dying stages of the Ottoman Empire, when Islam as a living way of life was reduced to a religion, and subsequently an institution to be interpreted at will by those falsely insinuate — as mullahs do by using the terminology of Imam, Alim, Amir when they know so little and wish to articulate still less — a sense of legitimacy and truth and justice.
There is no justice in the halal stamp. There is only the facade of justice. The mist of it.
But people are content to be blind and blinded, and the mullahs who have developed such institutions of false religion are, of course, the only type of religiosity to exist alongside false institutions such as the World Bank, communism and capitalism.
As a Muslim “imam” recently told me: “We would be happy to cooperate with the World Bank, provided that the US stopped vilifying Third World countries and Muslims as well. This is the way that economics works … We question only their politics.”
Because politics is how they dress up economic interests — like the allegory of the emperor’s new clothes. A dangerous illusion …
As they say, all it takes for the world to go to hell is for good men to do nothing …
Finally, understanding of what the perfect way of life should be. In an ideal world, no one would be expoited; not the human, and certainly not the chicken! The problem with the Islamic state of affairs is that we have taken a book of broad principles - much like a constitution - containing a framework for a perfect life and sought to entrench the manner in which these principles are achieved by codifying the thinking and understanding of people who lived between the 7th and 12th centuries. A principle is an idea, a concept and not the manner of how one goes about achieving or implementing the concept. The implementation must be fluid, the principle unchanging.
The “halaal industry” as I term it, has become big business. If there is one halaal standard (even by conservative thinking), then why do we need 6 or 10 or 12 or however many halaal certification agencies? And each agency has no difficulty in condemning the other as “wrong”.
It is my understanding that food sellers and manufacturers pay annual fees to the halaal certification agencies for the right to use the halaal mark. Some pay more than one agency.
I can understand that there may small fees required to ensure that the halaal agencies can operate and to defry their costs - but shouldn’t one agency then be enough? Surely there is a duplication of costs by having multiple agencies?
And if I eat food certified by one agency, and not by another, is it still halaal?
The author has raised important issues about what is to be halaal - surely the manner in which I slaughter an animal, and invoke the name of God cannot be the only criteria for declaring something as “permissible”. Does that mean if I slaughter a diseased animal in the prescribed manner it is permissible? Clearly not! I would be doing myself great harm in consuming such tainted meat, and not doubt suffer the consequences for my stupidity.
Would a halaal agency certify a slaughter house that slaughtered diseased meat in the islamic prescribed fashion? If they do, I would have grave reservation in consuming anything that bore such an accrediation mark. Maybe its time for these agencies to think about what their real purpose is.
(Report abuse)