Why a bottle of Evian water might carry a halal stamp
Halal simply means permissible, and in principle almost any food qualifies unless scripture rules it out. Yet the label now sits on halal foie gras, chicken nuggets, lasagne and even bottled water. By one 2013 estimate, shoppers spent $1.1 trillion a year on halal food, about a sixth of all global food and drink sales.
The Arabic word stands opposite haram, forbidden, and the pair appear throughout the Quran. The same root that marks lawfulness can also describe a pilgrim leaving the consecrated state and returning to ordinary life. Islamic jurists later refined the simple split into five grades of action: mandatory, recommended, neutral, reprehensible and forbidden. They still disagree over whether halal covers only the top two grades or everything except the last. Beyond diet, the concept reaches into business ethics and finance, where it underpins the ban on usury.
For food, the default is permission. Pork is the one meat categorically excluded, while blood, carrion and intoxicants such as alcohol are also off limits. Most scholars accept shellfish and other seafood, and vegetarian dishes pass as long as they contain no alcohol. A person facing starvation with nothing else available may eat forbidden food. Because processed goods, cosmetics and medicines often hide animal by-products, the rules extend to them too. Meat must come from an animal slaughtered by a Muslim with a single cut to the throat, facing the direction of prayer, while God's name is invoked. Meat prepared by Jews or Christians under comparable conditions can be accepted, so some Muslim communities use kosher meat as a substitute.
Stunning is a live point of friction. Traditional rules allow it only to calm a violent animal, yet UK Food Standards Agency figures from 2011 found that most halal cattle, sheep and chickens in Britain were stunned first. Several European countries, including Denmark, Belgium and Sweden, prohibit slaughter without stunning. Sikh teaching rejects ritually slaughtered meat altogether.
Certification has become a business in its own right. Muslim-majority governments usually issue it, while elsewhere private bodies charge companies an annual fee. France alone accounts for roughly $8 billion of a European halal market worth about $30 billion; in 2010 French halal food and drink sales ran to nearly double those of organic products.
Source: Halal
