SHARIAsource

This fatwa acknowledges that shellac is a resin secreted by the lac insect that lives in plants. It declares that shellac is holy (suci) and its use in food, medicine and cosmetics is halal, provided it provides benefit and is not hazardous.

This fatwa states that the meat and milk of livestock that is fed unclean (najis) feed or raw foodstuffs, the unclean content thereof being minimal or not significant, is fit for human consumption. Moreover, if livestock is fed haram food products which do not affect the smell or flavour of the livestock, and do not endanger the consumer, the meat and milk derived from that livestock is deemed to be halal. If the feed given to the livestock does, however, alter the smell or flavour of the livestock, and does endanger the consumer, the meat and milk derived from that livestock is forbidden (haram).

This fatwa states that the consumption of the placenta of an animal slaughtered in a shari'a-compliant way is permitted, provided it is not hazardous for its consumer. Consumption of the placenta of a carcass, however, is forbidden (haram).

This fatwa states that the fur, hair and horns from the carcass of a halal animal, including those not slaughtered in a shari'a-compliant manner, may be used for non-consumable items, but is forbidden (haram) from being consumed.

This fatwa defines 'formalin' as a compound of formaldehyde. It states that the handling and treatment of fish must (wajib) respect human safety and health standards. Therefore, the use of formalin and other hazardous substances in the handling and treatment of fish that can endanger people's health and lives is forbidden (haram).

The fatwa also recommends that the government, relevant businesses, and society take steps to remove and avoid such hazardous practices.

This fatwa states that snails are categorised as hasyarat (insect). The consumption of hasyarat is considered forbidden (haram) according to the Hanafi, Shaf'i, Hanbali, and Zhahiri schools, while Imam Malik states that hasyarat are halal if there is benefit in their consumption, and they are not hazardous. The fatwa, however, states that the consumption of snails is forbidden, as is cultivating and exploiting them for consumptive purposes.

This fatwa states that the use of snails for non-food purposes, such as external medicinal and cosmetic needs, is permissible (mubah), provided there is no hazard involved and a benefit exists therein.

This statute regulates food and beverage content, safety, transportation, distribution, trade, sanitation, packaging, quality, nutritional-value, labelling and advertising, in Indonesia.

This statute regulates fishing and fisheries. This includes all activities related to fishing, the environment, the capture, cultivation, management and conservation of fish, as well as fishing vessels, fishermen, fishing permits, designated-fishing zones, and fishing ports.

This statute makes several amendments to Law No. 31 of 2004 on Fishing.

Plaintiff Andre Harvey, a Muslim inmate at the David Wade Correctional Center, filed this action against the Respondent, Chaplain Ray Anderson, for allegedly removing the Plaintiff from the list on inmates approved to receive a religious diet and for denying him access to the Islamic community chapel. The Respondent filed a motion for summary judgment, and the Plaintiff did not file any response.  The Magistrate judge determined that the Respondent did not remove the Plaintiff from the list without cause, but instead that the Plaintiff himself failed to attend Friday prayer services and continued to not attend religious events, thereby warranting his removal from a list of Muslim inmates. The Magistrate judge therefore recommended that the motion for summary judgment be granted, and the complaint be dismissed with prejudice.

Plaintiff Hilton Karriem Mincy, a Muslim prisoner at the Lycoming County Prison, brought this suit against the Respondents – the county prison, the prison warden and other prison officials – alleging that the prison’s inadequate food service during Ramadan, which included no hot meals at the end of the day and evening meals of insufficient caloric content to compensate for the absence of a daytime meal, constituted a failure to accommodate his religious beliefs and a violation of the RLUIPA. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania entered summary judgment in favor of the Respondents, and the Plaintiff appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court. The Court of Appeals determined that the Plaintiff identified no official policy promulgated by the prison administration which violated his constitutional rights, and there was no evidence to suggest that any named Respondent played a direct role or had any personal involvement in the preparation or storage of food.

In a Q&A fatwa format, Ayatullah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani is asked whether it is permissible to slaughter an animal, based on the Islamic halal rituals, that has been stunned before slaughter. It is noted that this way of slaughtering an animal–using the technology to stun– the animal has become common. The answer published is yes.  

In two Q&A fatwas, Ayatollah Nasir Makarim Shirazi is asked about the permissibility of electrical shock to the animal (stunning) before zibh (ritual slaughter). Ayatollah Nasir Makarim Shirazi allows for such conduct as long as the animal is not dead as a result of stunning. He goes one step further in calling stunning the animal a preferred method if it is proven that it reduces the pain of the animal.

The plaintiff, who won a judgment in the lower court, challenged the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine’s refusal to retry an employment discrimination case in which the jury refused to award damages despite finding the defendants guilty. In the underlying case, the plaintiff had sued his employer under §1981 and Title VII, alleging religious and national-origin discrimination as well as harassment based on his race and religion in the form of a wide range of offensive actions and statements aimed at the plaintiff, including likening the plaintiff to Osama bin Laden, telling him to go back to his own country, and attempts to shove pork in his mouth (Islamic law prohibits the consumption of pork). The plaintiff argued that on a guilty finding, the jury was obliged to award damages as a matter of law. The appellate court, however, pointed to precedent rejecting this argument, and thus affirmed the lower court’s decision not to retry the case.

The Plaintiff Nathaniel Hallman, a federal prisoner at the Lexington County Detention Center and an observing Muslim, brought this suit against the Respondents, Trinity Food Group, the Sheriff of Lexington County and several sheriff employees, for allegedly refusing to provide adequate and appropriate meals during Ramadan. The Respondents filed for summary judgment, asserting that the Ramadan meals provided to Muslim inmates were adequate. The Magistrate judge found that the prisoner requested to participate in Ramadan, during which members of the Islamic faith fasted during daylight hours. The detention center inmates observing Ramadan were not served a meal during the lunch period, but are provided a breakfast meal before sunrise and a dinner meal after sunset. The Magistrate judge recommended that the motions for summary judgment should be granted because the menu served to the inmates observing Ramadan was approved by a licensed dietician to ensure that the menu met those inmates' caloric and nutritional needs.

Plaintiff Sturgeon Stewart, an inmate at the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) brought suit against Respondents Vernestene Dulin, head of prison food services, and various other prison officials for alleged violations of his rights to religious free exercise on the claim that the prison served Muslim inmates the same ḥalāl food menu for all meals of the day, and that these meals excluded meat. Ḥalāl food is meat prepared in accordance with Islamic ritual law, and free of pork and alcohol. The Plaintiff contended that this repetition was not a nutritional religious-accommodating alternative to regular prison meals. The Court found for the Respondents, determining that Muslim prisoners do not have a right under the First Amendment or the RLUIPA to be provided ḥalāl meat entrees. Rather, a correctional facility need only provide Muslim prisoners with food that is not ḥarām (prohibited under Islamic law). The Court found that, as long as the Plaintiff was given an alternative to eating non-ḥalāl meat, he did not suffer a substantial burden to his religious beliefs. The Court determined that the Plaintiff had been provided with alternatives to non-ḥalāl meat, but that the Plaintiff was “simply not happy with the substitutions offered.” Therefore, the Court concluded that the Plaintiff’s factual allegations, construed as true, failed to establish a violation of the Plaintiff’s federal rights.

Islamic finance creates financial products specifically aimed at Muslims that are sharīʿa compliant. Many scholars have condemned Islamic finance for condemning ribā (interest) on the one hand, particularly where usurious, but then many others have created workarounds that allow modern big-finance firms to avoid it in name only on the other hand. Those who argue against the workaround argue that nominal interest-avoidance goes against the spirit of the guidelines set forth in Islamic law (sharīʿa). Weighing in on the controversy, University of Toronto Law Professor Mohammad Fadel considers whether ribā might serve a function that goes beyond simple definitions of it as either interest or usury. Historically, the prohibition on interest was a means of regulating medieval financial industries, in ways that have little application to the modern financial instruments. The medieval prohibitions and the modern controversies about Islamic finance then, he argues, are misaligned and need rethinking. This post provides a "plain English" review of the article: Mohammad H. Fadel, Ribâ, Efficiency and Prudential Regulation: Preliminary Thoughts, 25 Wisconsin Journal of International Law 655 (2008).

This statute regulates, among other health-related topics, family health, nutritional improvement, food and beverage safety, environmental health, workplace health, mental health, disease eradication, recovery from illness, and traditional medicine. It was subsequently replaced by Law No. 36 of 2009.

This regional regulation makes provision for public order in Tanjung Jabung Barat, Jambi. Specifically regarding Islamic rituals, art 19(1) prohibits all persons and restaurant owners from preparing food and opening their establishment between 6.00am and 4.00pm. It permits restauranteurs to prepare food during those hours if the restaurant itself is closed. Article 19(2) prohibits all persons from eating and smoking in public, which may disturb people fasting (ibadah puasa). Article 19(3) prohibits all persons from lighting fireworks during Ramadhan, while art 19(4) prohibits the playing of arak-arakan sahur artistic instruments before 1.00am.