False fatwas a front for money-making rackets

WITH reference to the report, “’Fatwa’ on top hair relaxer” (Weekend Argus, June 25) it is truly astonishing that Muslims in South Africa have been tricked and frightened by a foolish fatwa (suspect religious opinion) to refrain from using a best-selling hair relaxant on the fraudulent grounds that it apparently contravenes Islamic law.

For a self-serving, unaccountable and non-transparent body like the South African National Halal Authority (Sanha), along with its pedantic counterparts in the Western Cape and elsewhere, to pronounce on the matter has nothing to do with the product’s actual efficacy but everything to do with future commercial prospects for a rapacious halal industry.

It verges on total insanity for Sanha and other self-appointed halalissuing bodies to claim Brasil Cacau should be banned. Do they really think if this imported Brazilian item coats microscopic individual hair follicles, this is tantamount to rendering it haram, impermissible and prohibited?

These backward and petty-minded organisations with their heads buried in the sand need to be told in no uncertain terms that their invented assertions do not contravene Islam.

Indeed, God is not obsessed, unlike these witless male priests, if there is an impermeable coating on each hair strand or for that matter, any varnish on nails.

Such temporary layers do not invalidate ablutions or prayer, irrespective what these myopic mullahs might say. Not one of these despotic and undemocratic halal “agencies” furnish any pertinent Qur’anic passage to vindicate their “findings”.

Muslims should simply ignore their halal pronouncements.

They are often nothing but a cunning money-making ruse.

In fact, it is an organised business racket for these vested Muslim groups to rake in untold millions of rands yearly from indoctrinated consumers.

Muslims should demand to know what happens to the halal certification income said to be in excess of R100 million per annum. It should be clear that this whole operation is just a supremely profitable scam for these unscrupulous issuers of halal certificates.

Only until and unless there is full financial transparency, irrefutable Qur’anic legitimacy for their outlandish “rulings” and true democratic accountability within the South African halal certification industry, Muslims are advised to proceed with utter caution. They should not blindly follow the dictates of a highly obscurantist clergy or their greedy commercial partners in their apparently premeditated halal racketeering.