Islamic Education

Intro
Before independence, the British promoted a Malay vernacular education with
some form of Islamic education. This gave rise to what is popularly known as the
dichotomy of education into secular and religious streams. The Malaysian
government later made an effort for the reintroduction of Islamic education and in
the 1970s implemented the New Economic Policy. Under the policy, the
government realized the importance of Islamic education in affirming Malay
hegemony. The study attempts to shed light on the variety of forms, patterns, and
evolutionary trends of Islamic education and hopefully present a more subtle
picture of the Malaysian Islamic education.

Body
1) In recent years, Islam as school knowledge has been increasingly perceived as a problematic category in
education, in both Muslim and non-Muslim contexts.[1] Terrorist incidents globally have provoked searching
questions on the ends and substance of Muslim education, foregrounding the role of Islam in shaping Muslim
attitudes towards the “other”. Although the espousal of militant extremism has been viewed as limited to a small
minority of madrasas in “remote outposts”, the threat of it spreading to other areas has prompted Muslim politicians to
give serious consideration to the implications arising from the specific modes of Islam being promulgated in their
national contexts.
While the debate on Islam in Muslim education is complex, to say the least, and shaped by multiple forces, two
viewpoints in particular have served to crystallise prescriptive discourses on this issue. On the one hand, neo-
revivalists and Islamists [2] have demanded the imposition of Islam as an overarching epistemological framework in
the school curriculum that incorporates and regulates all other forms of knowledge (Ashraf, 1985; Husain & Ashraf,
1979). From an oppositional standpoint, modernists and secularists argue for its scope of influence to be regulated,
preferring to see it contained as a bounded subject alongside other disciplines. [3]
This polarising conflict frames in stark terms the question of the approach to Islam in the education of Muslims: ought
it to be the sole reference point that defines the entirety of what constitutes education for a Muslim, or ought it to be
one court of appeal among others in educational decision making? This crucial dilemma has been addressed in
diverse ways in Muslim contexts, depending on factors such as the status accorded to Islam in national policies, the
nature and degree of political activism exercised by Muslim movements, and historical and socio-cultural forces that
have shaped the particular complexion of educational institutions in given settings (Daun & Walford, 2004; Rahman,
1982; Roald, 1994).
Given the range of responses, many of them arising from contemporary social exigencies and political pressures,
much confusion persists over the approach to be adopted towards Islam in the curriculum. Neither the containment
nor the expansion of Islam in Muslim education by policymakers has been free of ramifications, exposing an aporia to
which there appears to be no easy resolution. The edifying vision of Islam, if curtailed in educational terms, risks
being deprived of its spiritual and moral bearing that has served as an orienting inspiration for Muslim societies for
centuries; given free rein institutionally, it is open to being misappropriated by extremist elements to pursue their own
ideological ends.
It has been all too tempting in the present circumstances for educators to lean one way or the other in a bid to resolve
the crisis, without adequate reflection on the implications arising from each choice. What has long been required,
although this proposal may appear impractical under current conditions, are fresh appraisals and reflexive critiques
directed at the tangled mass of theories, policies, and practices that abound today so as to arrive at reasoned and
justifiable courses of action to be adopted in Muslim education. Recognising the complexities involved, this form of
analysis is inevitably a long-term endeavour that warrants iterative research, deliberation, and debate. One pressing
issue which calls for considered attention, and which provides the impetus for this study, is the make-up of the
curriculum in Muslim countries. [4]
In the context of the enquiry undertaken here, the curriculum is understood as an epistemological field demarcated
and structured for pedagogical purposes and given functional expression by educational institutions and practitioners.
More broadly, it can be viewed as a pedagogic discourse, process, or mechanism by which knowledge becomes
culturally selected and socially validated.[5] The analysis of the curriculum invites examination as a “text” with a
historical trajectory, and as a contested field in which forms of knowledge vie for legitimacy and canonicity, revealing
which disciplines are privileged or subordinated, integrated or isolated, ascendant or on the wane, thus exposing
political and epistemological preferences at work in a given system of education (Apple, 1979; Bernstein, 1990).
Curriculum analysis from the perspective of social epistemology entails scrutinising school knowledge as a site of
social interests and conflicts that also reciprocally conditions societal relations and outlooks (Popkewitz, 1987).
The curricular space in Muslim contexts, as in other societies, has not been free historically of social conflicts, being
exposed to political, religious, and cultural forces that have contoured its topography. The curriculum in Muslim
societies presents itself as an intensely contested field which has undergone fundamental shifts and transformations
in Muslim history, both in the remote and recent past (Makdisi, 1981; Rahman, 1982). For any reformative strategy to
be effective, it is necessary to have a grasp of the historical tendencies operating on the curriculum in Muslim
education, and how constructions of the past feed into contemporary discourses of contending groups. In this paper, I
analyse the problematic of Islam in the school curriculum from historical, political, and epistemological perspectives,
drawing broadly from the conceptual repertoire of the sociology of the curriculum (Bernstein, 1990; Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1977).[6] In particular, I attend to the implications raised by Islamists and secularists through their
counterpoising claims on the curriculum, and the nature of the dilemma faced in teaching Islam to Muslims today in
national contexts where “traditional” and “modern” forms of knowledge have come to be viewed in dichotomous and
reified terms. While attempts have been made to overcome this dichotomy in a variety of contexts, through the
incorporation of subjects such as science, mathematics, and languages in the curricula of ‘reformed’ madrasas for
instance, a polarised discourse persists at the level of the ideologues whose underlying motives need to be
explicated. More specifically, this discourse needs to be interrogated for its bipolar ideology that casts the “traditional”
and the “modern” as essentially static, absolute, and ultimately irreconcilable categories, oblivious to the ongoing
creation, expression, and realisation of redefined modernities by contemporary Islamic traditions and movements.
It needs to be stressed here that this paper is a preliminary contribution to a topic that requires further research, the
analysis being confined to illustrative Muslim contexts, primarily in the Middle East and selected parts of Asia.[7] As
such, the conclusions drawn in the article need to be corroborated by the findings of emergent studies on Muslim
education that are beginning to attend to curricular issues (see e.g. Fortna, 2002; Hashim, 1996; Menashri, 1992;
Roald, 1994; Starrett, 1998).
The Dilemma
The subject of Islam forms an important component of the curriculum of state and private schools in Muslim
countries, being taught under a variety of headings such as al-tarbiyya al-islamiyya (Islamic Education), Islamiyyat,
Islamic Studies, or talimat-e dini (Religious Instruction). It may be accompanied by ancillary or cognate subjects
centred on the learning of the Qur’an, the hadith, and sira (traditions and biography of the Prophet), usul al-
din (principles of the faith), and akhlaq (moral precepts), while also finding mention in subjects such as history, social
studies, civic education, and languages (Daun & Walford, 2004; Leirvik, 2004; Shamsavary, Saqeb, & Halstead,
1993). In the state schools of some Muslim countries, as much as one-third of the instructional time may be allocated
to the teaching of subjects directly related to Islam. Its inclusion in the school curriculum is commonly perceived as a
continuation of the religious instruction imparted in Muslim societies in the past through kuttabs or maktabs
(elementary or beginners’ schools) and madrasas (colleges of higher instruction in the religious sciences and Islamic
law), in which children and youths were inducted into their faith. Examined from the perspective of Muslim
educational history, however, Islam as a bounded subject in the contemporary school curriculum is a departure in
significant respects from pre-modern paradigms of Muslim religious education – in its form, substance, as well as
approach.
The origins of pedagogical Islam as a modern school discipline lie possibly in that wider narrative of the construction
of academic subjects that began to compose educational curricula in the 19th and 20th centuries, spurred by the rise
of new disciplines in the intellectual field and invested with official status by the project of the modern nation-state
(Goodson, 1993; Green, 1997).[8] The disciplining of Islam into an objectified school-level subject seems to have
been an offshoot of the development of Islam as a specialist field of enquiry in institutions of higher education, at first
in Europe and then globally, and which came to be known variously as Oriental, Arabic, Middle Eastern, or Islamic
Studies.[9] Orientalism itself can be perceived in part as a social Darwinist attempt at the classification of cultures and
their positioning within the epistemological framework that originated in and evolved from Enlightenment thought
(Sharpe, 1986). Islam, along with other religious and cultural categories, was rendered into a discipline by being
recontextualised and reified as the constructed artifice of “religion”, a process that is very much a modern
development, as William Cantwell Smith (1978) has argued.
The formulation of Islam as a circumscribed academic subject represents a crucial turning point in the history of
Muslim education, resulting in a significant transformation of the curriculum as an epistemological field. Prior to the
modern period, it is difficult to locate, as a norm, a specialised discipline explicitly designated as “Islam” in the
education of Muslims. What we discover in the classical and post-classical curricula of Muslim educational
institutions, instead, are subjects such as tafsir(Qur’anic exegesis), hadith (traditions of the
Prophet), fiqh (jurisprudence), usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence), and kalam(theology), all undoubtedly
associated with the faith of Islam and integral to its understanding, but no distinct, unified, and bounded subject
known as Islam, whether referred to by that title or its cognate designations (Makdisi, 1981). The introduction of this
new subject in the modern school setting points to the endeavours of educators to distil some form of synthesised
essence from the historically evolved religious sciences by compacting them into a diluted paradigm of Islamic
Studies, in the bid to present the core of the faith through the economy of delineated slots in the school timetable, but
in the process of doing so, changing the nature of the pedagogical discourse, if not the theological episteme itself.
The inclusion of Islam in the state school curriculum reveals one means by which policymakers in modernising
Muslim states of the 20th century tried to eliminate the bifurcation of Muslim education created by inherited and
imported modes of schooling during the colonial period, a breach which some early Muslim reformers attempted to
overcome while as yet under colonial rule. With the exception of the newly formed state of Turkey, which sought to do
away with Islam altogether in its educational system in the immediate post-Ottoman phase, other Muslim states
adopted strategies to represent the subject in their national curricula in a variety of modes, the space allocated to it
mirroring the degree of influence Islam in general was deemed to wield politically (Hashim, 1996; Hoodbhoy, 1998;
Starrett, 1998; Szyliowicz, 1973; Tibawi, 1979).
With the establishment of state and private schools alongside existing and restructured madrasas, what transpired as
a radical reconfiguration of educational institutions in Muslim societies spurred the birth, after intermittent periods of
educational change, of an alternative and innovative curricular space. This new epistemological field was composed
of a mix of discrete but interlinked disciplines, as had been the case to some degree in pre-modern systems; but in
contrast to the curricula of those madrasas in which the religious sciences predominated, the subjects now included
forms of knowledge previously supplemental, marginalised, or excluded, and which came to be labelled as “secular”
knowledge. While Islam was inserted by policymakers in this framework as an additional discipline, or in some cases
as a subset of interrelated disciplines, it was not universally and intentionally deployed in the immediate post-colonial
period to act as a uniting and integrating core to which all the other subjects made reference. Rather, it appears to
have been conceived as functioning predominantly in its own separate space, intersecting with other subjects such as
history, geography, civics, and social studies, but without generally doing away with their disciplinary integrity. The
overall philosophy that seems to have informed this pluriform curriculum was that young Muslims should be exposed
to a rounded concept of knowledge (Gokalp, 1959; Hussein, 1954; Sadiq, 1931).
In the consolidating phase of the post-colonial decades, Islam as a pedagogical category in state schools was
strategically appropriated as part of the overall drive towards national unity, perceived as a potent means to inculcate,
in diverse Muslim constituencies, a common understanding of Islam through state education. Politically, it was one
strategy among a range of others through which the ruling elite of nascent Muslim nation-states sought to forge, as a
matter of practical expediency, national unity, identity, and consciousness out of divided loyalties in order to check the
threat of ethnic and sectarian conflicts. This imperative afforded the state with a justification for presenting Islam in a
contained and controlled manner in its official curriculum, while allowing policymakers to claim its presence and
representation in state education as answering to the demands of the Muslim public for religious education. National
leaders and ministers of education in the first half of the 20th century, in their commitment to realise their reformist
projects, actively set out to promote the case for modernising Islamic education in the domain of public schooling
(Gokalp, 1959; Hussein, 1954; Rahman, 1953; Sadiq, 1931). In consequence, as Starrett (1998) reveals in his study
on educational change in Egypt, school-level Islam became objectified, codified, and functionalised for political and
social utility in the phase of rising nationalism.
In the 1970s, a belated reaction arose among Islamist thinkers that was specifically targeted at the disciplining of
Islam into a school subject. Labelling this process as the “secularisation” of education, advocates of this view took
exception to Islam being contained and relativised in the education of Muslims. If secularisation was the negation of
the ideals upheld by the neo-revivalists, its alternative was Islamisation, an ideological perspective given formal
expression in a series of conferences on Muslim education organised in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Husain &
Ashraf, 1979). In these conferences, the opposition to a mode of instruction for Muslims in which Islam was assigned
a restricted and reduced status was vociferously expressed, and the case was promoted for all school subjects to be
taught within an integrative framework, making Islam the central point of reference for Muslim education.
The call for the Islamisation of education represented, in essence, a bid to reinstate Islam as an overarching
epistemological frame in the determination and propagation of knowledge. Islamisation was advanced by its
proponents as the fundamental means by which the curricular hegemony lost with the modernising of Muslim
education could be reclaimed. Advocates of this stance sought, in effect, to force the revaluation of the epistemic
legitimacy of school subjects through the redefinition of relations between forms of knowledge. The argument was
insistently made that in educating young Muslims, Islam necessarily had to be the principal source of reference,
without which Muslim education, to the extent that it fostered “Muslimness”, was rendered meaningless, if not nullified
altogether. Islam, as an all-encompassing outlook on the totality of life and the sole foundational base that defined
and justified all forms of learning, so the Islamists asserted, could not simply be reduced to a subject in the curriculum
but ought to constitute the epistemological basis of all subjects to which Muslim children were exposed (Husain &
Ashraf, 1979). As an ideological viewpoint, Islamisation committed itself to reversing the perceived secularisation of
Muslim education that materialised in the modern period, while also challenging, both frontally and tacitly, the
authority of the modern nation-state to educate Muslims, positing in its stead a transnational and homogenising ideal
of Islamic education.
In the last quarter of the 20th century, the totalitarian aspirations of the Islamists gained a degree of political
realisation in Muslim states where Islam was adopted as the state ideology. In the case of Pakistan, Islamiyyat was
not only imposed as a compulsory subject in the curriculum from the elementary to undergraduate level, but a
concerted attempt was made to integrate Islamic content into other subject areas (Hoodbhoy, 1998; Nayyar & Salim,
2002), effectively diluting disciplinary boundaries so as to Islamise the domains of pedagogical knowledge. In Iran,
the 1979 revolution led to the extending of the space allocated to Islam in the curriculum, resulting in its permeation
into subjects such as history, geography, literature, and economics that had previously been more eclectic in their
approach (Godazgar, 2001). These cases reveal interesting relations between the nature of political ideology
espoused by modern nation-states, and the types of epistemological boundaries constructed in their educational
curricula.
The questioning of the disciplining of Islam in recent decades has opened up a new frontier of debate in Muslim
education, as have political attempts by some Muslim states to Islamise all domains of school knowledge. Deep
tensions exist today in various Muslim contexts between the containment and expansion of Islam in the curriculum
(Roald, 1994; Starrett, 1998). Exacerbated by the contemporary geopolitical crises and concomitant acts of terrorism,
the problematic of Islam in the epistemological space has taken on a sharper edge. Should Islam be treated as a
single discipline or an all-encompassing frame of reference in Muslim education? How is the schooling of Muslims to
be understood in relation to Islam? Is Muslim education conceivable without Islam, or with circumscribed reference to
it? Conversely, what implications are raised for Muslims if the entirety of their education is determined by Islam,
howsoever defined? Any attempt to answer these questions by the various stakeholders, which warrants careful
deliberation and debate on their part, requires as an initial step a clearer understanding of the curriculum as an
epistemological space in Muslim history.
The Historical Case
Islamisation, while being a modern polemic (Abaza, 2002; Wan Daud, 1998), draws its justification from historical
arguments with history being used as a means to legitimise curricular categories and relations through a projection of
contemporary desires onto the past. It plays to the advantage of the Islamists to deploy the historical card in order to
give credence, validity, and force to their political and pedagogical claims. Modern changes in the curriculum are
therefore portrayed as aberrations and deviations, with policymakers being exhorted to return to their historical roots
and traditions to repossess a supposed authenticity of Muslim education. The invention of tradition conjures up the
impression that the curricular space was a unified field in Muslim history or, if differentiated, that it was entirely
determined by an essentialised “Islam”. Such claims need to be interrogated through an engagement with historical
sources that refer to the classification and positioning of fields of knowledge in Muslim intellectual traditions.
The argument that the education of Muslims was wholly informed by some form of univocal and monolithic Islam, and
that the curricular space in the Muslim past was consensually derived, does not quite stand up to historical evidence
(Bakar, 1998; Makdisi, 1981). In the first five centuries of Muslim history, education in Muslim societies became
diversified denominationally, institutionally, and epistemologically. Denominational and sectarian diversification from
the outset meant that there was no agreement among Muslims on how the Islamic message was to be understood,
leading to differences of interpretation between Shi‘as, Kharijis, and Sunnis, not to mention the claims of numerous
sects and schools which emerged within the major traditions. At the same time, these differences were given material
expression through the development of diverse institutional paradigms which included masjids and jamis (mosque
colleges), dar al-ilms and bayt al-hikmas (academies of knowledge or wisdom), khizanas and maktabas
(libraries), zawiyas and ribats (monastic colleges), mashhads (shrine colleges), as well as madrasas. Contrasting
forms of curricula, although sharing some common elements, found expression in these institutions to answer to the
particular understandings of the Islamic vision which each tradition espoused (Berkey, 1992; Halm, 1997; Makdisi,
1981; Rahman, 1982).
As Muslim history progressed, different modes of education evolved, depending on whether philosophical, legal, or
mystical perspectives were adopted as a matter of emphasis by the divergent traditions of interpretation (Hodgson,
1974). From an epistemological perspective, intellectual developments in Muslim civilisations reveal keen attention to
religious, literary, and scientific spheres of interest. The curricular schemes proposed by philosophers such as al-
Farabi were based on an eclectic mix of subjects-philosophical, theological, and empirical (Bakar, 1998), and
institutions like the Fatimid Dar al-Ilm in 11th-century Cairo took the form of proto-universities that adopted a
pansophic approach to knowledge (Halm, 1997), an aspiration also to be discerned in the encyclopaedic endeavours
of the Ikhwan al-Safa. In the classical phase of Muslim history, a natural diversification of the curriculum was
beginning to flower, responding to the changing social and historical circumstances, the specificity of intellectual and
cultural contexts, and the particular readings of Islam being upheld.
The early epistemological space in Muslim education crystallised around the study of the Qur’an, the awakening
interest in linguistic sciences, and the scholarship based on the traditions and biography of the Prophet, including the
history of early Islam, a phase closely followed by the development of jurisprudence, theology, and other ancillary
subjects such as scholastic logic, rhetoric, and prosody (Hodgson, 1974). The curricular space experienced an initial
differentiation and advancement of the religious sciences, but gradually lost its intellectual fecundity with the
ascendancy of fiqh (jurisprudence) as a regulatory discipline that sought to curb competing domains of knowledge
(Rahman, 1982).
During the peak of classical creativity, Muslim engagement with philosophy, logic, astronomy, mathematics,
medicine, and the empirical sciences intensified, sparked off initially by the discovery and translation of ancient Greek
texts. This sphere of enquiry, in contrast to the field of religious knowledge, became categorised as the “ancient” or
“foreign” sciences. With the entry of this domain into the curricular space, the tension between the religious and
ancient sciences heightened, eventually culminating in a sharp demarcation between the two areas of knowledge,
with a further rift caused by the marginalising of adab(literary humanism) (Makdisi, 1981, 1990). These major
divisions in the classical period led to different emphases and strategies of organising the epistemological space, as
is evident when we compare the schemes of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ikhwan al-Safa, al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, and other
prominent thinkers (Bakar, 1998; Tibawi, 1979). The philosophers’ classification of the disciplines drew inspiration
from Greek sources and employed Aristotelian and neo-Platonic categories. Al-Ghazali and the theologians who
followed, on the other hand, applied religious law to define epistemic categories, dichotomising the curriculum
into fard ‘ayn-what was obligatory for each individual (to learn); and fard kifaya-what obligations (related to the study
of specific subjects) could be fulfilled by some on behalf of all (Al-Ghazali, 1962).
The increasing domination of religious law in the epistemological space of the Sunni legal schools effectively resulted
in the marginalisation of philosophy, science, and literature in the majority Muslim tradition (Makdisi, 1981). We thus
find in the madrasa education that gained prominence in Muslim history a close link being forged between knowledge
and control, an outcome arising directly from the struggle between competing interests over the curriculum. The
subsequent history of Muslim education witnessed the privileging of religious sciences by the ulama (religious
scholars), in some degree to safeguard their status in Muslim polity as the guardians of the faith and
the shari‘a (Muslim religious and social law), although it needs to be acknowledged here that in several contexts in
the modern period, the ulama served as active agents of change and reform (see e.g. Fortna, 2002, and Metcalf,
1982).
The Contemporary Situation
The historical hegemony exercised by the ulama over the curricular space was finally challenged in the colonial
period through the establishment of a parallel curricular field whose structure was imported largely from Europe
(Hashim, 1996; Metcalf, 1982; Szyliowicz, 1973; Tibawi, 1979). In general, religious sciences continued to dominate
the syllabi of the traditionalist madrasas, including restructured ones such as those introduced by the
Deoband ulama in the Indian subcontinent in the late nineteenth century (Metcalf, 1982). In contrast, “secular”
subjects furnished the organising framework for the new curriculum in state and private schools in Muslim societies,
into which disciplined Islam was inserted as an additional subject, a move mirrored in the attempts to inject non-
religious disciplines in the madrasas. Despite these measures, the ulama and the politicians struggled to reconcile
the parallel systems in critical parts of the Muslim world, leading to the entrenchment of a dual system of education in
these areas and sharpening the polarisation between what came to be perceived as the “traditional” and the “modern”
(see e.g. Hashim, 1996; Menashri, 1992; Metcalf, 1982). The madrasa curriculum offered resistance, not in all but
many cases, to the incorporation of the new non-religious disciplines, the latter being branded as “innovations” that
soon became subjected to the politics of suspicion by conservative-minded ulama.
In the 20th century, the changed political and social conditions provoked reconfigurations in school-level knowledge,
transformations that were driven in the main by the elite of the newly liberated Muslim nation-states keen to assert
their agendas of social reform. Emergent forms of nationalism dictated diverse modes of education-from
secularisation in Turkey (Kazamias, 1966) and modernisation in Egypt (Starrett, 1998) to Islamisation in Pakistan,
Iran, and Saudi Arabia (Hoodbhoy, 1998; Menashri, 1992; Tibawi, 1979). The particular types of policies adopted had
visible and material consequences for the epistemological status of Islam, manifested in its absence, containment, or
expansion in the curriculum.
In these and other Muslim states, there was a concerted attempt to impose a national ideology on education, with
Turkey and Saudi Arabia representing the two extreme poles of the stance expressed towards Islam as a
pedagogical subject. Turkey’s radical policy cast Islam as being antithetical to the project of the modern nation-state,
and therefore to be excluded altogether from the state curriculum if national progress was not to be compromised
(Kazamias, 1966). In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, where state and religious interests coalesced into a mutually
reinforcing alliance, a contrasting strategy was implemented by co-opting Islam into the national ideology which came
to control the curricular content (Tibawi, 1979). Other Muslim states adopted educational policies leaning towards one
of these extremes, and with varying degrees of political sway exercised over the presence of Islam in the curriculum
(Leirvik, 2004). It would not be amiss here to conclude that, overall, there was a lack of imagination on the part of the
modern Muslim nation-state and its elite in the 20th century to create a facilitative curricular space that cultivated a
progressive epistemology in all fields of knowledge, including pedagogical Islam.
This failure of Muslim states to address the educational dilemma explains to a large degree the reactions of neo-
revivalist and Islamist movements from the 1970s onwards, who began to promote alternative modes of socialising
the young. Islamisation, as one of these alternative ideologies, advocated a transnational approach that was not
simply a reversal to the pre-modern madrasa curriculum centred on the “traditional” religious sciences. Rather, it was
a political attempt at the total institutional and curricular control of education, requiring a radical shift from previous
conceptions of Muslim education upheld by the ulama (see e.g. Roald, 1994). In this scheme of things, science and
other non-religious subjects were not rejected but subsumed within the overall curriculum in a bid to institute Islam,
not as a solitary and detached subject, but as an overarching informing frame, determinative of all other spheres of
knowledge. Univocal Islam was perceived as the final and universal criterion of education, the arbiter of what
constituted valid knowledge and valid ways of knowing (Husain & Ashraf, 1979). What retained resonances with the
past was the attempt by the Islamists to re-impose epistemological hegemony over the curriculum, leading ultimately
to the restoration of doctrinaire religion as the dominating influence in the upbringing of the young.
The policy of the Islamisation of school knowledge advocated by neo-revivalists and Islamists reflects a somewhat
coarse polemic, based as it is on an ideological closure of Islam. More sophisticated arguments have since emerged
that challenge the current epistemological basis of the modern school curriculum, and which draw their motivating
impulses from post-colonialism, cultural studies, liberal feminism, and critical theory. These views question absolute,
exclusivist, and essentialised notions of knowledge promoted through contemporary education, and advocate instead
fidelity to cultural, situational, and negotiational processes of apprehending the world.
The Educational Argument
Given the multiple forces seeking to influence education in Muslim societies today, the question of the nature of
curricular space to be created for the emerging generations of Muslims has become increasingly complex. Ought it to
be secularised or Islamised? Should it be regulated by the state or Muslim communities? What principles should
inform its underlying epistemology? In response to the current crisis, there is a pressing need to modulate political
judgements on Muslim education with historical, sociological, and epistemological analyses. Fresh approaches and
options have to be identified that take into account the changed circumstances and realities in which Muslims find
themselves, and the implications these changes have for the upbringing of their young. Above all, it is essential for
Muslims to seek educational principles within the informing spirit of the Islamic vision itself that can break the impasse
created by the polarising tendencies of Islamists and secularists, and promote creative ways of conceiving education
in Muslim societies in the 21st century.
That Islam must have a place in the education of young Muslims is upheld as a sine qua non by Muslim communities.
Without Islam, Muslims consider themselves deprived of their “Muslimness”, for it constitutes their spiritual and moral
compass. On these grounds, the absence of Islam in the curriculum raises serious implications for policymakers in
Muslim countries, while a nominal presence will not be acceptable to the Muslim public. Muslim societies need to do
justice to the teaching of Islam in ways that genuinely foster a deeper understanding of its principles, while at the
same time cultivating the intellect of the young and preparing them for plural encounters.
Approaches to Muslim education are required that draw upon higher ideals of education in Islam, embodied in the
original vision of the prophetic message. These ideals have served as the inspirational fount of diverse intellectual
traditions that evolved in Muslim societies, and their underlying principles have been expounded over the centuries by
inspired thinkers and educators. Among these principles are the pursuit of knowledge-which calls for the unfettered
purchasing of wisdom for the good of all; the nurturing of personhood-facilitating the maturation of the individual into a
rational, responsible being, gifted with the potential for limitless growth; respect for the intellect-as a universal
propensity and divine endowment to humanity, progressively unveiling the mysteries of the cosmos and the self; the
quest for enlightenment through inspiration-answering to the inner need to engage with the fundamental, existential
questions in human life; and finally, acknowledgement of the diversity of interpretations and historical situatedness of
these principles-to be true to the plural reality of Muslim societies and the latitude of meanings accommodated in the
Islamic message. This natural diversity of understandings invites the enactment of plural forms of education, rather
than adherence to a single, monolithic notion of “Islamic education”, if the above principles are to be honoured and
realised.
Several options offer themselves for consideration in emerging approaches to Muslim education. The first of these is
to continue treating Islam as a curricular subject, but at the same time being alert to the modern tendency to reify
religious forms. The discipline-centred paradigm can prove advantageous for concentrated study, allowing the
exposition of Islam as a sui generis phenomenon while also highlighting what it shares in common with other faiths.
The bounded study of Islam as a world religion necessitates, however, that it be treated as an investigative entry
point rather than a restrictive cul-de-sac. Such an approach, in the context of state education, has to be non-
denominational and non-confessional to respect the beliefs of all students, incorporating an impartial study of other
traditions to equip Muslim students to live in a plural world.
A second option is to present Islam humanistically through its consideration in subjects such as civilisational,
regional, or cultural studies. Engaging with Islam from this angle, which goes beyond viewing it simplistically or
dogmatically as a “religion”, opens up for exploration a range of social endeavours, creative expressions, and cultural
enactments in Muslim civilisations that have been engendered historically by the Islamic vision, as also by encounters
and interactions with other societies. This curricular model has not quite received the attention it deserves, and holds
forth rich possibilities for Muslim education. Theology, law, and ritual form important aspects in the study of Islam, but
need to be complemented with other facets of engagement-political, economic, intellectual, and cultural-that are
integral to all Muslim societies. Students can be made aware of the organic connections that exist between different
domains of human experience, reflective of the complexity of social existence, by being acquainted with real-life
issues and conditions facing Muslims and other societies today.
A third possibility is to continue teaching Islam through the “traditional” religious sciences, especially
in madrasa settings, but nurturing the intellectual growth of these disciplines denied to them after the classical period.
Subjects such as tafsir, hadith, fiqh, usul al-fiqh, and kalam would be analysed from the perspective of their historical
development, and practitioners would be encouraged to expand this enquiry by bringing into play fresh ideas,
perspectives, and insights from other fields to reinvigorate the classical momentum, thus effectively setting up a
conversation between hitherto compartmentalised forms of knowledge. Instead of being quarantined, the religious
sciences would be considered participants as fields of knowledge in a shared epistemological space and invited to
“converse” on equal terms with other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Such interactions and
engagements would hopefully open up possibilities of interdisciplinary discoveries through mutual enrichment, while
also challenging the dichotomised interface between the “religious” and the “secular” as a modern artifice.
Finally, Islam can be perceived in Muslim education as an inspiring ethos, facilitating the creation of an enabling
environment in which education can be pursued in its broadest sense. In this mode, the spiritual and ethical principles
underpinning the Islamic vision would serve to institute a socially inclusive ethic in schools and madrasas, while its
intellectual premise would mandate that Islam be pursued as an area of enquiry, not a given. Such an approach
would require the relinquishing of ideological closures and the acceptance of the intellect as a sacred gift to humans
whose true calling lies in the pursuit of reason, wisdom, and excellence.
Conclusion
In the face of the complexities that Muslim societies are confronting today, and given the diverse nature of their
situations, the idea of there being a universal panacea to the reform of Muslim education is a highly questionable
proposition. Political and social realities are forcibly determining the pace, scope, and character of educational
changes occurring in different regions of the Muslim world. While it is reasonable to expect common patterns to
emerge between the educational systems of Muslim states, how Islam as a pedagogical category will be enacted in
each national context will of necessity vary.
On this basis, the four curricular options identified above, in somewhat condensed terms, are not intended to be
formulaic prescriptions, nor should one expect them to find application in all cases of Muslim education. Rather, they
are meant to contribute to the ongoing dialectic between theoretical conceptions and practical contingencies, and
more specifically, to catalyse the debate on the significance and relation of different forms of knowledge in Muslim
education.
While some of these suggestions may appear to verge on the utopian, it is possible to identify pioneering contexts in
Muslim societies where what was once deemed to be inconceivable or unrealisable now finds practical expression.
Thus, madrasas are emerging today where there is a courageous attempt to question the divide, and redefine the
relation, between the “traditional” and the “modern”, or between the “religious” and the “secular”. In state and private
schools, we come across approaches that are seeking to do justice to the message of Islam, while initiating the
young in the celebration of human diversity. We also find examples of curricula on Islam being developed that are
striving for a broad integration of normative, humanistic, and civilisational perspectives through the reconceptualising
of conventional disciplinary boundaries. Few though these cases might be, and somewhat experimental at this
juncture, they reveal promising possibilities for a wider renewal of Muslim education.
2) Islamic schools have always been part and parcel of the Malay-Muslim communities, even long before
the British came to shores of Malaya. The traditional Islamic schools are known as pondok and were the
only mode of knowledge transmission existed before mass education was introduced by the
British. Pondok education, which still exists until today, revolves around a teacher, who attracts students
by the dint of his reputation (this is an exclusively male domain). Its educational objective is primarily to
inculcate students with the values needed in becoming a good Muslim, with nary an emphasis on real
world practical knowledge. In the 1920s many Malay graduates from the Middle East, particularly Al-
Azhar University in Cairo, came back imbued with reformist ideals to seriously revamp the pre-existing
Islamic education. Muslim reformers (known collectively in Malay as Kaum Muda) such as Shaykh Tahir
Jalaluddin and Sayyid Shaikh al-Hadi established madrasah (literally meaning school in Arabic) that
employed modern pedagogical techniques and introduced secular subjects such as Math, Science and
English on top of the normal religious curriculum. It was also around the same time that bureaucratisation
of state religious authority started to take place, and the newly formed state Islamic agency began to build
and support its own Islamic schools. Meanwhile, the British colonial administration had also introduced
Islamic instructions in the Malay vernacular schools in its attempt to shore up student attendance. It is
one of the legacies that can still be found in the present national educational system, which absorbed
both Malay and English schools into its orbit in the early post-independence years.
Presently, Islamic education in Malaysia can be found in four types of schools: Sekolah
Kebangsaan (national schools), Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Agama(national religious secondary
school), Sekolah Agama Negeri (state religious schools), and Sekolah Agama Rakyat (people’s religious
schools). These schools mainly differ in the portion of religious instruction in their curriculum,
management, and funding sources. National schools and national religious secondary schools are directly
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, while state religious schools are managed by their
respective state Islamic agency and the people’s religious schools are established by the local community
(using combination of funding from federal and state agencies and private donations) and overseen by
board of governors.
The Malaysian federal system allows every state to establish and maintain its own religious educational
standard and curriculum. As a result, there is stark variance in quality and standard across the country, so
much so that a school certificate issued in one state is sometimes not recognised in another.
Furthermore, a lot of these state and local schools are poorly funded, lacking qualified teachers
(especially for secular subjects) and in such sorry condition. In 1977, the federal government tried to
absorb some of these dilapidated state and people’s religious schools into the national school system. It
only managed to take over 11 schools out of the 150 originally demanded. The states saw this effort as a
challenge to their independence and prerogative in the matters of Islamic affairs and therefore put up stiff
resistance. In 1983 the federal government again attempted to standardise the religious curriculum by
establishing the Advisory Council for the Coordination of Islamic Education (or known in Malay acronym
as LEPAI) via the consent of the sultans at the 126thConference of Rulers. LEPAI’s role is to coordinate
the teaching of Islamic education in all religious schools that are not administered by the Ministry of
Education. However, its authority is limited in the sense that it does not extend to the state religious
schools that are already using curriculum by their respective state religious department. In other words,
LEPAI is only responsible for the people’s religious schools, which numbered at 537 by 1977.
The end of 1970s marked the emergence of Islamic revivalism all across the Muslim world, which deeply
affected Malaysia. Various Islamic-based groups began to crop up and employ Islamic narrative to
question many of the government’s policies. Student leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim (currently the
Opposition leader) and Ibrahim Ali (now an UMNO friendly independent MP) agitated against the
perceived depredations of Western secularism and neo-colonial economic policies, which reverberated
profoundly across this newly-revamped socio-political landscape. Instead of meeting the Islamists’
challenge head-on, the government decided to roll with the punches and try to co-opt the Islamic
resurgence movement. One of the first moves made by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad when he
came to power in 1981 was to recruit Anwar Ibrahim, who was the president of Malaysian Islamic Youth
Movement (ABIM) and a vociferous critic of the government. This was done with hopes to take the sting
out of the Islamist movement. Anwar Ibrahim, in turn, used his position within the government to promote
a more expansive role of Islam in Malaysian society. In the educational arena, more funding was
allocated to develop Islamic instructions and build more schools. In 1983, the International Islamic
University of Malaysia (IIUM) was established as a centre to Islamise some aspects of human knowledge,
particularly in social sciences and humanities, to make it useful and relevant to the Muslim community
or ummah(Mission and Vision, IIUM website). Hence the stage was hereto forth set for increased
influence of Islam within the Malaysian society.
As previously mentioned the government does not have complete control over all Islamic schools in
Malaysia. While most of the schools remain compliant to the dictates of federal government, despite
being under the aegis of state religious agency, some prove to be “problematic” for the powers that be.
The quasi-independent Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR) came into the spotlight when some of its teachers
and graduates were charged with teaching deviant Islam and planning to overthrow the government
through violent means. In July 2000 a militant Islamic group called Al-Maunah launched a brazen raid into
an armoury and managed to get away with sizeable number of weapons. Many of the members of Al-
Maunah, including its leader Mohammad Amin Razali, were graduates of SAR, and thus landing SAR in
the government’s bad book. In August 2001 twenty-five members of Malaysian Militant Group (KMM)
were arrested by the Home Ministry and nineteen of them were graduates of SAR, including Nik Adli Nik
Aziz, the son of the spiritual leader (mursyidul am) of the Opposition Islamic party PAS and Chief Minister
of the state of Kelantan, Nik Aziz Nik Mat. Later in early 2002 Sekolah Tarbiyah Islamiyah Luqmanul
Hakiem, a small Islamic school in the rural part of the southern state of Johor, was shut down by the
Home Ministry with twelve of its teachers, including the headmaster, were detained for suspicions of
being members of KMM. All 155 of its students were later transferred to other schools. The school was
originally founded by Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir in the early 1990s, the two spiritual leaders
of militant Islam in Indonesia, who were then fugitives fleeing the law in their home country.
The government has shown that it would not hesitate to use harsh measures if the schools cross the
permissible boundary, however it is defined. In the aftermath of the crackdown the former Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad announced that: “Of course [we will interfere] if they deviate from the real purpose of
education, when they use the premises to inculcate our young with their ideologies and aims [sic] to
topple the Government” (New Straits Times, 1 February, 2002). In March 2003 then Education Minister
Musa Mohamad announced in the Parliament that government funding for SAR would be diverted to
national Islamic schools due to dismal academic performance and anti-government activities, which
resulted in the transfer of almost 15,000 SAR students and 2,000 teachers to other schools (Utusan
Malaysia, 18 March, 2003). The funding cut has also forced many SAR to close down or reluctantly agree
to be incorporated into the national school system, which would subject them to federal supervision.

Efforts to quell “anti-establishment” tendencies among some of the SAR prove to be a tricky proposition
as the government has to walk the tight rope between repelling challenges to its hegemonic rule posed by
the Islamists and at the same time not coming off as “anti-Islam.” In the context of a heavily Islamised
Malay society to be branded as such would be a death knell to its legitimacy (at least this was true until a
few years ago as Islamic discourse in Malaysia has presently started to become slightly more diversified).
Religion, in this particular context Islamic education, is still a useful political tool ready to be
instrumentalised if needs arise. Despite its misgiving of SAR’s “subversive” nature, in November last year
the federal government announced a RM 35.6 million (AUD 10.8 million) assistance for religious schools
(including 22 SAR) in the state of Kelantan, which has long been the stronghold of the Opposition. In his
speech the Education Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, stated that “this
financial assistance proves that the federal government does not play favourite when it comes to
elevating the standard of national education” (Utusan Malaysia, 24 November 2011). While it is certainly
the obligation of the government to provide adequate resources for all public schools, one does have the
right to question its real intention especially when the general election is looming large on the horizon. All
things considered, Islamic education remains an irrevocable part of Malaysian society and will continue to
be a hotly contested ground for the foreseeable future as the struggle to shape the minds and save the
souls of young Muslims wages on.
Malaysia is modern Muslim country where more than half of its 26 million people have embrace
Islam as their religion. Halal is an Islamic religious guide to how Muslims should live their lives from
the way their food is prepared to how their personal and social relationships are conducted. In
Malaysia Halal is a concept accepted by all, by both Muslims and non- Muslims. The majority of
businesses in Malaysia sells products or offer services that are Halal endorsed. The Malaysia Halal
Certification is globally respected.
In our ever progressive world, it has become increasingly challenging for Muslims to determine
whether the food or drinks they consume are religiously acceptable or Halal. This Halal and non-
Halal problem is not only limited to food and beverage but also to other products and services.
For Muslims living in a totally Islamic country like Saudi Arabia, the Halal question is not an issue at
all. For those living in a multiracial Muslim country like Malaysia, although Halal food or services are
readily available and easy to obtain, there is a need for the authority to monitor and enforce
standards to ensure Halalness particularly when the products or services are made, sold, prepared
or provided by non-Muslims. However, the real challenge is for Muslims living in a country whose
population is predominantly non-Muslims. Extra diligence is needed for these Muslims to enjoy
everything Halal.
Most striking is that there are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims in the world who are consumers of
Halal foods. As such the Halal food market is the largest food market in the world. Among the Halal
importing countries are those which have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, have
the fastest growing middle classes in the world, import a significant proportion of their food needs
and have the highest rates of population growth in the world.
Malaysia will be developed International Halal Food Hub for monitoring and standardization the Halal
food product. The Halal certification will be gives if the food ingredients are Halal. This certification of
Malaysia Halal standard are also will be strengthened and aggressively promoted internationally.

HALAL BEEF PRODUCT

Halal products are fast gaining worldwide recognition as a new benchmark for safety and quality
assurance. Products that are produced with Halal certification are readily acceptable by Muslim
consumers as well as consumers from other religions. This acceptance is due to the
wholesomeness concept of Halal, which covers not only the Shariah requirement, but also the
hygiene, sanitation and safety aspects.
Halal certification is a powerful marketing tool for both the Muslim and non-Muslim producers, as
there are an increasing awareness on the part of Muslim consumers all over the world on their
obligation to consume Halal food.
The Arabic word(Halal) means lawful or permitted. In the Holy Qu'ran, Allah commands Muslims and
all of mankind to eat of the Halal things. Basically, Allah Al Mighty knows what is best for us to eat.
And normally all the Halal food are very clean and safe from any disease. But for non-Halal food,
you always can find some interesting facts relating to sickness.
This following products are definitely Halal such as milk (from cows, sheep, camels, and goats),
honey, fish, plants which are not intoxicant, fresh or dried fruits, legumes & nuts like peanut, cashew
nuts, hazel nuts, walnut, grain such as wheat, rice, rye, barley, and oat. Basically, all food is Halal
except meat from swine such as pork, ham, pork-based products and by-products such as sausages
and gelatin. Animals improperly slaughtered or already dead before slaughtering is due to take
place. Animals killed in the name of anyone other than Allah (for example, by anyone other than a
Jew, Christian or Muslim, or as part of a pagan sacrifice), intoxicants, blood and blood by-products,
foods contaminated with any of the above products. Most of the desserts use non-Halal Gelatin that
comes from pigs.
Focus about the beef, they are only Halal if they are slaughtered according to Islamic Law. The
procedures that we must do at the beef are the animal must be slaughtered by a Muslim. The animal
also should be put down on the ground or held it if it is small. The throat of the animal must be sliced
with a very sharp knife to make sure that the 3 main blood vessels are cut. While cutting the throat of
the animal (without severing it), the person must pronounce the name of Allah or recite a blessing
which contains the name of Allah, such as "Bismillahirahmannirrahim, Allah-u-Akbar". Islam prohibits
the meat of animals that are slaughtered without reciting the name of Allah and those that are
slaughtered whilst pronouncing a name other than Allah. Mentioning the name of Allah during
slaughter is actually a way of seeking permission from God for taking the life of the animal for the
sole purpose of sustenance. The prohibition to recite a name other than Allah during slaughter acts
as a safeguard to a Muslim's faith. Islam is a religion which promotes monotheism and rejects any
form of polytheism. Mentioning a name other than Allah is regarded as a polytheistic act, thus such
act is not permissible during slaughter.
For more information, they lead the cow into an area, line its head up with where the piston comes
out, and BAM! The cow is unconscious, hung by its ankles, and sent to where the slaughter takes
place. Regarding poultry, a common practice is to render them unconscious by electrocuting them
before slaughter.
Slaughtering is to be done from the front of the neck, between the throat and the head of the breast
bone (Libba). The throat/oesophagus (Mirree), windpipe/trachea (Halkoom) and the two jugular
veins (Wadijan) are cut in the neck without severing the spinal cord. This cut severed the arteries to
the brain of the animal, thus depriving the brain of blood supply. As a result, the brain loses
consciousness due to insufficient oxygen. This renders the animal unconscious, causing the animal
the least amount of pain.
By contrast, the Islamic method of slaughtering does not allow for animals to be killed in front of
other animals. It requires an extremely sharp blade and the swift incision of the major veins in the
neck to facilitate in a painless, quick blood loss and death. Before the slaughter takes place, the
animal is examined for overall health. If the animal is deemed unhealthy, it cannot be slaughtered for
food. The animal is slaughtered in such a way that most of the blood exits the body. The goal is to
slaughter the animal, limiting the amount of pain the animal will endure.

DEPARTMENT OF ISLAMIC DEVELOPMENT MALAYSIA

(JAKIM)
HISTORY
In 1968, the Conference of Rulers Pakistan has decided that the need for a body to mobilize efforts for development and
advancement of the Muslims in Malaysia, in line with Malaysia's status as an Islamic country that has strong international and world
attention.

Recognizing this, a secretariat to the National Council of Religious Affairs was established, to maintain the purity of faith and the
teachings of Islam. Secretariat was subsequently developed as the Religious Department of the Prime Minister who was later
promoted again to the Islamic Affairs Department (BAHEIS).

On January 1, 1997, in line with the development and progress of Islam in the country has stabilized, the Department of Islamic
Development Malaysia (JAKIM) is established by the Malaysian government took power and the role (BAHEIS).

FUNCTION OF JAKIM
Formulation and standardization of Islamic law

Formulate, review and amend laws for the standardization of Islamic states.

Streamline and standardize the Islamic law throughout Pakistan.

Act enacts Islamic law and the federal territories.

Enforcement of Islamic law states

Coordinating the implementation and compliance ruling.

Coordination in the administration of Islam

Streamline the administration of Islamic affairs and the states.

Build a strong Islamic thought among Muslims based on the holding of the Sunnah Wal Jamaah.

Produce cadres Islamic preachers and scholars through training in training institutions of Islam.

Establishing benchmarks and practices of Islam through the formulation of service standards Hadhari

Referral centers and advisory services relating to Islam government and private agencies.

Increasing collaboration with the missionary network non-governmental bodies at national and international

Strengthening survival of Muslims in Sabah and Sarawak in educational, missionary and social-economic

Strengthening unity among Muslims to the Ummah.

To empower the non-Muslim, indigenous peoples and minority groups.

Expand the program and plans Islamic through radio and television stations.

Expanding the program elements of Islamic values and personality to deal with social ills.

Coordination and development of Islamic education

Developing a team of experts in various fields of Islamic knowledge.

Make Malaysia a hub for higher education and research al-Quran and al-hadith in regional and international levels.

Develop and coordinate the management of the state religious school of Islamic education and Islamic schools.

Develop and coordinate programs and classes al-Quran mass Ain (Kafa) in the current national education policy.

Strengthening the role of institutions and programs prosperity mosque as a center of science and civilization of the community
development that involves all walks of life.

WHY ISLAM FORBIDS PORK

Pork is the most commonly eaten forms of meat around the world, there are over 100 million metric tons of pork is consumed
throughout the world. And pork can be served in different forms such as cooked or form of sausages. However, we know that Islam
not eating pork but what is the reason they forbids pork. So now, we go to discuss about it.

We know that food and drink have a direct effect on our health. That is why Islam prevents to unhealthy food. Because they believe
both physical and moral health are equally important for a healthy society. Therefore, the abstention from eating pork is one of the
steps taken by Islam to practice hygiene and to attain purity of soul.

To cultivate our inner faculties, Islam insists upon the cleanliness of body and the purification of soul through Salaat (prayers), Zikr
(remembrance of Allah) and other devotional duties. Islam teaches us how to attain the virtues and how to give up bad habits
because both good and bad grow in the man according to his upbringing, education and environment.

A human being has natural desires: food, sleep and sex being the three primary ones. He has also natural emotions: sorrow,
happiness, love, fear, disgust and avarice etc. Islam doesn't recommend the complete abrogation of these impulses but offers a
method of controlling them through religious education and discipline.

The prohibition of eating pork in Islam is relevant in this context. There is a saying in English that "a man becomes what he eats."
According to physicians and medical experts, pork is a harmful diet. Consumption of swine-flesh creates lowliness in character and
destroys moral and spiritual faculties in a man. Despite Islam allows Muslims to eat clean thing. However, in the consumption of
meat, Muslims are required to be selective and distinguish the Halal foods.

Dr. E. Kazim. M.D, in his article "Medical aspects of forbidden foods in Islam" (July 1981 issue of Muslim Journal) has described
diseases carried or caused by the flesh of swine. He writes: "The pig is a scavenger. It is an omnivorous animal. It eats everything.
There are many diseases carried from swine to man, particularly parasite infestations. Lately extensive research has been focused
on senility-old age is characterized by hardening of inner lining of the blood vessels of the heart, brain etc. a process called
atherosclerosis. When a clot forms, it results in coronary thrombosis or a heart attack, cerebral thrombosis or stroke.
Dr. Glen Shepherd wrote the following on the dangers of eating pork in Washington Post (31 May 1952): "One in six people in USA
and Canada have germs in their muscles - trichinosis 8 from eating pork infected with trichina worms. Many people who are infected
show no symptoms. Most of those, who do have, recover slowly. Some die; some are reduced to permanent invalids. All were
careless pork caters."

He continued: "No one is immune from the disease and there is no cure. Neither antibiotics nor drugs or vaccines affect these tiny
deadly worms. Preventing infection is the real answer."

After reading the statement of Dr. Shepherd, one can realize that there is no real guarantee of safety when eating pork that one
would not be affected by trichina worm. That is why modern doctors advise three prohibitions during illness: no liquor, no pork and
no smoking.

At the end we know that Muslim forbids pork because they respect their religion. They believe their GOD will care for them. But if
they are under famine, they still can eat pork to survive, it's no sin.

CONCLUSION
At the end, we found that Halal food have many benefits and that's why many people either Muslim or non Muslims, would like to
choose Halal food.

Halal meat is beneficial for nutrition and health. Only healthy animals can be slaughtered. It is done by Muslims who are trusted and
experienced. The meat itself will have no blood clots within the veins-giving it a longer shelf life. Animals will be treated with mercy
and respect and will be blessed with the name of God (Allah) prior to slaughter.

Ethnic and religious considerations are not the only reasons why consumers are choosing kosher- and Halal-certified foods. Many
perceive the extra supervision implicit in the certified foods assures higher quality and safer food products.

According to Packaged Facts report, 'Market Trend: Kosher- and Halal-Certified Foods in the US', resonates with a similar report
from Mintel released earlier this year, which concluded that the majority of US consumers who buy kosher foods do so for perceived
quality and safety reasons, rather than for religious ones, and there is no reason to assume things are any different in Australia and
New Zealand.

They study found that three in five people who buy kosher food do so because they perceive it to be better quality, Halal food also
have a lot of nutrition and they feel safe to eat it, and it free from any disease other that, availability to get Halal food is easier. The
two most popular markets for Halal food are South-East Asia and the Middle East.

By going through the Halal certification process, food processors will open up the possibility of additional clientele and often they will
not even have to make changes to their product to get such certification.

There are four steps in processing of Halal food that is: application, submission, processing certification and post certification. And
what's the important in the steps of processing is certification attests that a product/service is suitable for Muslims and finished
products which adhere to Halal manufacturing procedures carry a Halal symbol on the label.

We know that all equipment used in the production of Halal foods must be free from contamination with non-Halal items and comply
with the necessary hygiene and sanitation requirements. All ingredients must all be Halal as well.

Favorable perceptions
Many consumers believe that Halal and kosher food is produced under stricter supervision than is provided by government
inspection and for many consumers the Halal and kosher symbols guarantee that the food is free of contaminants or disease and no
preservatives added.

The research indicated that more than half of consumers who purchased kosher products did so because they considered them to
be safer than products not certified as kosher.

Mintel's research has shown that kosher was the most frequently used claim on food and drink products launched in the US in 2008
which, as the Jewish population is not increasing, suggests that the growing interest may be more to do with food safety than
religion.

Aside from religious requirements, kosher and Halal supervision adds another level of quality control in responding to the needs of
the discerning consumer. Simply by adhering to the kosher and Halal requirements and having foods certified, processors will
broaden their market.