Halal certificate as Bid‘ah, Zulm, and Shirk（ハラール証明はビドア［異端］、不正、多神崇拝である）

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيمييم

2009/10/13: Fukuoka, ALNOUR Islamic Culture

“ Halal certificate as Bid‘ah, Zulm, and Shirk ”

Hassan Ko Nakata

1. Halal certificate is a Bid‘ah(reproachable innovation), because no one have dared to innovate Halal certificate in Islamic history since the era of the Prophet Muhammad(ss) until the last day of the Ottoman Caliphate, neither great Caliphs nor Sultans, needless to say of Ulama` of Sunni 4 schools, despite they have enough authority and legitimacy of making it.
(1) Halal certificate is nothing but an imitation of Kosher certificate of the Jews who sell their religion for money and are cursed by Allah saying; “Therefore woe be unto those who write the Scripture with their hands and then say, "This is from Allah," that they may purchase a small gain therewith. ”(2:79) (http://www.kosher.org.uk/howto.htm#)
(2) In Islam there is no priesthood or religious institution to authorize the doctrine “officially” and impose it on the believers contrary to the Christianity and the Judaism, every Muslim should make effort to know how to live according to the Divine Will referring to Qur`an and Sunnah by oneself or consulting the trustworthy scholar by his own choice in case of incompetence of the referring by oneself.
(3) Regarding the political authority in Islam, its obligations are called as Ahkam Sultaniyyah, the most important one of which is enforcement of Hudud or penalties prescribed by Shari‘ah, then Hisbah or supervision of the social order as imposing Friday prayer on Muslims and punishing Riba (interst) takers, (banks) , following the verse “O you who believe, fear God, and give up the usury that is outstanding, if you are believers. But if you do not, then be warned of war from God, and His Messenger”
(2:278-279)
Ibn al-`Arabi al=Qurtbi(d.1272) comments, ; Ibn Khuwaiz Mandad says(d.1000), ; If the inhabitants of a country admits riba legitimating it, they become apostates and the rule on them is the same rule concerning the people of the apostasy. If they don’t legitimate it ostensibly, it is lawful for the caliph to fight against them. Don’t you see that Allah has already permitted it by saying “then be warned of war from God, and His Messenger…”.(Qur’an, 2:279) Cf., al=Qurtbi, Jami` li-Ahkam al-Qur’an, vol. 3., p.364.
Issuing Halal certificate is never included in these Ahkam Sultaniyyah.
(4) Any government which does not carry out the above mentioned obligations has no Islamic political authority at all.

2. Imposing Halal certificate on people is a Zulm(injustice), especially in case of being accompanied with demanding money for issuing it and preventing free trade of people banning them to declare their own things as Halal.
(1) Every Muslim can sell his own properties without need of getting permission from any person or organization as far as it is lawful. So preventing such sales or imposing permission is a Zulm, injustice.
(2) As for the slaughtered meet, only its slaughterer is qualified to say whether it is properly slaughtered or not, none else, on the condition that he has the knowledge of Islamic rules of slaughter.
(3) Unless one is with the slaughterer, observing how to slaughter throughout the whole process in all the cases, his certificate can not accepted as the Islamic lawful testimony.
As the late Shaikh Ibn Uthaimin said.
(4) It is impossible to certify that the meet is Halal, because the conditions of the Halal of the meet are innumerable, not limited to the way of slaughter but how to get the animal, how to get the money by which he bought the animal, whether the slaughter is true Muslim and so on. Only thing we can do is to judge it as Haram in case of finding the violation of any of them.
As the late Shaikh Ibn Uthaimin said.
(5) In fact, an owner of Muslim restaurant who imported chicken marked Halal of Sadia and made Gyoza of it and tried to sell it packed with own made Halal mark, but was finally prevented by being said that she was not authorized to stamp Halal mark on Gyoza made by herself and she should buy Halal certificate by the authorized institution. This case clearly shows Halal certificate is violation of Islamic freedom of trade, thus Zulm.

3. Halal is what Allah makes it Halal in Qur`an, i.e., it is the prerogative of Allah to decide what is Halal. Allah only names some general categories as Halal and trust people to decide by themselves whether individual concrete things which they deal with are Halal or not. Thus declaring Halal on the individual things of the people, not general categories, is not only the violation on the right of the people but also the usurpation of the prerogative of Allah, the Sole Legislator, i.e., Shirk (polytheism) .
(1) No one or no institution can authorize things as Halal officially to impose their judgment Muslims. Especially, we should not trust in any anti-Islamic organization which neglects the rejection of enforcement of penalties prescribed by Shari‘ah, Hudud and the violation of the prohibition of Riba (usury) issuing Halal certificate.
(2) Islam means submission to Allah, so Shari‘ah is a way of submission. That is why there is no legal body in Islamic jurisprudence. Only natural person can submit to Allah according to Shari‘ah, a corporate body or juridical person such as “dawlah” or “state”, company, bank and so on. The modern nation state is a idol or false god which is substitution of the church, Corpus Christi (body of Christ), in the Medieval Europe, which had enslaved the spirit of the human beings. So the state is the very idol, it cannot be “Islamized”. To entrust the state or its subdivision to decide Halal and Haram and impose its decision officially is nothing but the idolatry to submit the idol, the state, with total submission, i.e., not only in worldly affairs but also in religious affairs.
(3) Shari‘ah prescribes the rules which is related only to the men of authority, Uliy Al-Amr, Ahkam Sultaniyyah, as collective responsibility, Fardh Kifayah, as it prescribes rules for ordinary men as individual responsibility, Fardh ‘Ain. We can entrust only Ahkam Sultaniyyah to the rulers to carry out them for us with supervising them in their excusions, but the rest of the Shari‘ah is what we must undertake by ourselves.
(4) Issuing Halal certification is not under the category of Ahkam Sultaniyyah which is a job of the Uliy Al-Amr as the establishing Islamic Bank is not under the category of Ahkam Sultaniyyah which is a job of the Uliy Al-Amr. Concerning the slaughtered meet, the Prophetic Sunnah clarifies that we should not inspect how it was gained, so we had better to follow the Prophetic Sunnah. As the late Shaikh Uthaimin said.

Conclusion – What we should do?
1. We should struggle to prevent the Bid‘ah, Zulm and Shirk of Halal Certificate.
2. We should provide the Muslims with the true knowledge of Halal and Haram of the food with difference of opinion of the reliable scholars, which includes rules concerning the food which was brought by unknown way.
3. All those who are provided with such knowledge are qualified to judge what they slaughter by themselves as properly slathered and allowed to eat for themselves and as well as for others and say that he slaughtered properly. But whether it is Halal or not can not be judged because other elements such as lawfulness of the gain of the animal and the money besides slaughter are also to be taken into consideration for Halal judgment.
4. As for the food, we had better not to inspect at all with trusting Muslim society by following the Prophetic Sunnah, in Islamic standpoint of view.
5. If the certificate is issued, it should show only the ingredients without using term Halal as any other certificates issued for commercial, sanitary and medical purpose.
6. If the certificate is to be issued in Islamic point of view, it should be Haram certificate on the condition that the criteria of Haram should be mentioned in detail enumerating all the opinions of Islamic law schools as well as it should be clearly mentioned that it is not official, not binding on any Muslim .

Warabbunalmusta‘an