I want to applaud the President, Ian Khama for taking a bold step in denouncing the halaal requirement, by chain stores as an unfair business practice, though this was long overdue. Halaal requirement is purely a religious and business undertaking, which Muslims will die to defend and are determined to impose upon non-Muslims with unrelenting vigour. Satar Dada and Ahmaed Bhamjee's reasoning on this issue has neither head nor tail. It is neither here nor there. After all there is no one who disputes that good food handling standards are key to good health. But to bring up a clumsy justification that in order for meat to be considered clean and edible, a Muslim priest has to first perform Islamic rituals on the animal being slaughtered, defeats logic.
Halaal is an Islamic word, which means holy, lawful and permissible or can be used, while the opposite is Haraam, which means unholy, unlawful and impermissible or abstain from it or totally forbidden. To prove that halaal is both a religious and business tool used by Muslims, I wish to quote from a transcript of a talk by Mufti Ebrahim Desai at the Shari'ah Compliant Business Campaign of Darul Ifta, Madrasah In'aamiyyah, Camperdown in May 2003, South Africa. Desai is a member of the South African Muslim Association and was addressing Muslim businessmen. He starts off his talk by saying, "Once again, I welcome each and everyone of you to our Shari'ah Compliant Business Campaign - The Sure Way to Attain Barakah (blessings of Allah) in our business. To make our business Shari'ah Compliant is indeed, the sure way to attain Barakah".
