Challenges to The Halal Industry: A Study on The Legal Acceptance from Some Non-Muslim Countries

Santhira Morgan,Jasni Sulong

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i12/11869

Abstract

The Global Halal Industry is under threat and proactive action is needed to arrest the threat. The global halal industry is worth USD2.3-trillion. However, it is poised to decline in the coming years for it faces many challenges. In the West, the issue is not stunning animals before slaughter, in China, the Chinese authorities are battling to erase halal signs displayed on restaurants and in India, it is the Jhatka food industry. Since 2015, the Jhatka industry is gaining support from the majority Hindu population who feel that the minority Muslim population have imposed their religious practices on the majority Hindus, who regard the halal way of slaughtering is haram according to Hindu standards. The objective of the study is to examine all the opposition to the halal industry and suggest ways to minimize the adverse effects of the opposition. This study employed library research methods. Data was gathered mainly through newspaper reports published in the last 5 years. It was analyzed by examining the current trends in the meat industry and the reasons for introducing the Jhatka system of slaughter. It was found out that the Hindu revivalism and the perceived need for a more humane way of slaughtering animals by the West, as the main causes for the opposition. While nothing much can be done to religious claims of Hindus, it is proposed that the Halal industry introduces a mild form of stunning to place the animal in a semi-conscious state before slaughter, while remainly true to Islamic standards.

Highlights

The Halal food industry has enjoyed a monopoly and they have made inroads in areas beyond the food industry like cosmetics, fashion, tourism etc
The Global Halal Industry is under threat and proactive action is needed to arrest the threat
Since 2015, the Jhatka industry is gaining support from the majority Hindu population who feel that the minority Muslim population have imposed their religious practices on the majority Hindus, who regard the halal way of slaughtering is haram according to Hindu standards

Summary

Introduction

The Halal food industry has enjoyed a monopoly and they have made inroads in areas beyond the food industry like cosmetics, fashion, tourism etc. Since the late 2010s the Halal industry has been challenged in the West as being too cruel in the method of animal slaughter and some countries have banned halal meat altogether. In China the Chinese authorities are talking down Arabic and Islamic symbol like the halal logos in restaurants all over the country to Sinicize China. In India, the word, jhatka was unheard of among the wider population prior to 2015. It became popular after a Sikh, Eshwinder Sethi, opened India’s first jhatka meat processing plant in Pune (Tfipost, 2021), as an alternative to the halal method of slaughter based on religious grounds. Jhatka method of slaughtering is method in which an animal is slaughtered in one go, form the neck top to the bottom unlike the halal method which starts the slaughter with a very sharp knife, from the bottom of the neck to the top which allows the animal to die after cutting the veins

Objectives

Findings

Methods