Featured Halal Article   Values and Practices of Halal and Haram From the holy definition, Halal literally means “lawful” or “permitted.” The Koran and the Sunna exhort Muslims to eat the good and lawful food God has provided for them, but a number of conditions and prohibitions obtain. Muslims are expressly forbidden from consuming carrion, spurting blood, pork, and foods that have been consecrated to any being other than God himself. These substances are Haram and thus forbidden. The lawfulness of meat depends on how it is obtained. Ritual slaughtering entails that the animal is killed in God’s name by making a fatal incision across the throat. Another significant Islamic prohibition relates to wine and any other alcoholic drink or substance; all such are Haram in any quantity or substance. In addition to Halal and Haram, doubtful things should be avoided, i.e. there is a gray area between clearly lawful and unlawful. The doubtful or questionable is expressed in the word mashbuh, which can be evoked by divergences in religious scholars’ opinions or the suspicion of undetermined or prohibited ingredients in a commodity. Hence, far more abstract, individual, and fuzzy aspects of context and handling are involved in determining the Halal of a product. To determine whether foodstuff is Halal or Haram “depends on its nature, how it is processed, and how it is obtained. As new consumer practices emerge, they give rise to new discursive fields within which the meaning of Islam and Islamic practice are being debated. One key effect of these transformations is the deepening and widening concern for Halal commodities among Malay and non-Malays Muslims, which the scholar called it as the “Halalization”. The Halalization signifies a major preoccupation with the proliferation of the concept of Halal in a multitude of commoditized forms.