Sunday, October 26, 2014

The origins of Halal Certification Schemes



After doing some research I discovered that while there are reports that halal certification actually began in the 1960s it didn’t take off until the 1980s.

IFANCA (Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America) has been established since 1982, IDCP (Islamic Da’Wah Council of the Philippines) since 1987, ICCV (Islamic Co-ordinating Council of Victoria) 1992 and Halal Australia since 2004.

In The Australian newspaper a while back Mr Ikabel Patel of the  Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) said, "Australia has had legislation on halal since 1983 -- so we are already dealing with aspects of Sharia for the benefit of the country.”

I believe the key to the rise of these schemes is related to the 1979 siege of Mecca.

It is reported that about 100,000 people became hostages in the Grand Mosque of Mecca shortly after they gathered for the dawn prayer.

A group of several hundred Jihadis from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and also some Americans and Canadians had entered the mosque with weapons, overpowered the guards, shut down the gates and proclaimed the arrival of the saviour, the Mahdi, that would cleanse the Muslim world from its impurities brought in by the Westerners.

In an article called, “Remembering the Siege” Mr. Trofimov says the Saudi army took a while to realise what was going on.

The problem was that the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque is a place so sacred to Muslims everywhere in the world, that it's forbidden by the written Hadiths to bear arms there.

So, the Saudi military were really reluctant to even point their weapons toward the unrest unless there was an authorisation, a Fatwa, from the leading Muslim clerics. And it took a while for the Saudi royal family to secure that.

Elizabeth Kendall an Australian historian, political observer and blogger says that the reason it took so long to secure the Fatwa was because the Imams were doing a deal with the Saudi Royal Family.

The Imams agreed to issue the Fatwa as long as the royal family’s oil money was put to good use globalising Islam.

They were to fund schools, mosques, universities and more in Western nations.

Mosques are mostly responsible for the halal certification agencies that have exploded across the globe since the 1980s.

A simple search on the internet confirms that the mid-1970s was when the Islamic resurgence came into full swing and it was funded by an abundance of money from Saudi Arabian oil exports.

Beginning in the 1980s, the Saudi Arabian government began to finance the construction of mosques in countries around the world.

An estimated $US45 billion has been spent by the Saudi Arabian government financing mosques and Islamic schools in foreign countries.

“Ain al-Yaqeen”, a Saudi newspaper, reported in 2002 that Saudi funds may have contributed to building as many as 1,500 mosques and 2,000 other Islamic centres.

Stuart Robinson writes in his booklet called the “Challenge of Islam” that there was a resurgence of Islam under the Ayatollah Khomeini.

He is reported to have said, “Holy War means the conquest of all non-Muslim territories and this war is the duty of all Muslims”.

He said, “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry, ‘There is no God but Allah’ resounds over the whole world, and until it does there will be struggle.”

This sentiment is echoed in The Grand Mufti of Bosnia Herzegovina, Dr Mustafa Ceric statement when urged the Muslim Ummah in 2010 to conquer the world through the Halal movement. He said, “As Halal means pure and hygiene the non-Muslim world has no hesitation (choice) but to accept it.”

The fact is many non-Muslims strongly object to halal certification.

It is unnecessary and is funding an Islamic religious ritual totally irrelevant to the majority of Australians.

Kirralie will soon have an app available that will identify halal certified items on shelves.

Pickering Post
 

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