Safeway Halal Meats

There's a great post on the burgeoning muslim/halal trade industry over at Altmuslim.com. Here are some excerpts (my emphasises):

Muslims, on the other hand, have a purchasing power that overwhelms the still-small collection of businesses that caters exclusively to them (mainly Mom-and-Pop restaurants, stores, and markets). And since nothing attracts the corporate world like the smell of unharvested profits, businesses from Citibank to IKEA are wondering just how much Muslim marketing they can produce without alienating their other customers, and initial forays are meeting with some success.

Next month, two conferences on the halal industry, the World Halal Forum and MIHAS, will take place in Malaysia, a country that aims to be a "halal hub" for the world halal food industry. But among the attendees will be representatives of many non-Muslim countries, such as New Zealand, South Africa, and India, which are aiming to be the leading suppliers of halal meat to Muslims, both domestic and international.

What chance does the local Halal butcher have, for example, when Muslims can pick up shrink-wrapped halal meats at the local Safeway while they do their everyday shopping? The irony is that the Muslim consumer market is maturing faster than Muslim food and halal service providers.

Interesting no? Read the article here.

p/s: Brief hiatus in effect. Exams mah.

Bacaan asing

petikan dari laman Ustaz Hazrizal:

THE AGE OF MUSLIM IGNORANCE

Pada saya, apa yang telah membelenggu Eropah di era itu, hal yang sama jugalah sedang membelenggu pemikiran umat Islam hari ini. Saya bimbang dengan pemikiran simplistik umat Islam di Malaysia hari ini. Jika Tok Wan di kampung, tentulah saya tidak bimbang. Tetapi yang menjadi kerisauan saya adalah tokoh-tokoh masyarakat, ahli politik dan Ulama sendiri.

Di era penghormatan orang ramai terhadap Ulama semakin terhakis, ramai Ulama yang dengan sendiri menambah sebab untuk mereka tidak dihormati.

Suatu ketika, kita beranggapan bahawa semua yang menentang Islam adalah Orientalis. Semua Orientalis adalah musuh Islam. Walaupun mungkin kita bahagikan Orientalis kepada Orientalis klasik, moden, dan pasca moden, namun kita beranggapan bahawa semua kelompok ini bekerja untuk menjayakan agenda penjajahan dan merancang untuk membinasakan Islam. Lantas kita gagal bersikap adil, dan seterusnya terhijab dari mengambil manfaat menerusi kajian Orientalis yang bermaksud baik seperti Arnold Toynbee.

Kita juga marah dengan Orientalis kerana menyalah tafsirkan Islam, bagaimana pula dengan jenayah kita menyalah tafsirkan Eropah? Apakah kita sudah menghasilkan terjemahan Islam terhadap Western Civilization? Orientalis gigih bekerja, dan kita hanya gigih menangkis, semata-mata.

Saya terkejut apabila mendapati ada di kalangan rakan saya yang belajar di Eropah tetapi menumpukan pembacaan tentang Orientalis kepada hasil karya orang Islam terhadap subjek tersebut. Tentunya pembacaan sedemikian rupa akan diwarnai oleh bahasa sacarstic, prejudis dan sinis yang merugikan. Sedangkan saya dan rakan-rakan di Malaysia, kami bertungkus lumus membaca tentang Orientalis berasaskan karya Orientalis sendiri, agar kami tidak bias, dan boleh membuat kesimpulan yang adil tentang mereka.

Kami menempuh kesukaran untuk mendapatkan bahan bacaan tentang Orientalis, dan jika ada terjual di Kinokuniya atau Borders, harganya menyeksa diri. Sedangkan mereka yang berada di Eropah tidak mengambil peluang daripada keberadaan mereka di sana, untuk mendalami isu ini dari sumbernya yang asli.

kalau berani, ia dibaca dengan ini: Ancaman Pembiusan Agama, tulisan Fathi Aris Omar.

[TAMBAHAN (10/5/2007): Kedua-dua artikel ini mengupas isu yang sama, iaitu perlunya berlaku adil terhadap kawan dan lawan, di dalam konteks penerimaan ilmu. Ia, pada hemat saya, sesuatu yang perlu diamalkan oleh setiap muslim.]

Ada baiknya jika diskusi di hujung artikel ini dibaca juga.

Mohon dijaga adab di dalam berpendapat.

3 Days of Biryani

This is not a ‘blog dakwah’. My blog is about subjects that interest me, which may include but is certainly not limited to muslim issues and Islam. Even then, I prefer my discourses on Islam to be intellectual and of a sober nature. As such, you’ll find, in this blog, few references to anyone’s personal experiences, their level of iman nor even, Muslims’ the world over all time favourite, “How I Came To Islam” tales.

However, I cannot but state that the past few days as anything else than an iman ‘high’.

There goes my first paragraph.

Describing the first Annual Australian Islamic Conference is difficult. It dealt with real-world issues and concerns, yet at the same time many hearts were touched. Controversies accompanied the conference but its findings stressed gentleness. Even the audience themselves; for a local conference, was overwhelmingly international. Only the biryanis perhaps have an accurate description.

However, this could be its Achilles heel. In its bid to cover as many areas conceivable, the conference could lose its focus. This may not be the case at present, when the Australian Muslim population is only few in number, but when it grows (and since these are muslims we’re speaking of, I would add; exponentially) can the impact the conference had on the delegates be replicated once the technical nature of the varied discussions increase? Or would it become of interest only to academics and dyed-in-the-wool Islamists?

Of course, I may be missing the woods for the trees here. The organizers, Mercy Mission, have after all stated that they do not intend to be a jack of all trades, but instead, a platform to facilitate projects and share resources. A DHL for Muslim organizations ,if you will, which IMHO is a wonderful and novel idea. Administrative efficiency is seldom the forte of Muslim organizations (probably due to their largely voluntary nature), but if through Mercy Mission these organizations can make their ideas work and be implemented widely by providing supply-chain services that are beyond the capacity of the organizations i.e. national advertising, technological know-how, then perhaps that exponential growth may not pose such a problem after all.

My petty concerns aside, I do feel it was a wonderful experience. It was odd initially to see the Melbourne University's Economics and Commerce Building turn into a mini Taman Melewar, but then you realize what you were observing were really the reality of Muslims. Not radical militants, certainly not assimilating apologists, but rather a colourful bunch of families who want, as Shabir Ally puts it, “maximum happiness one earth, and maximum happiness in the hereafter.”

To the speakers, Dr Jamal Badawi, Shabir Ally, Waleed Basyouni, Tawfique Chowdury, and Yvonne Ridley, I thank you for sharing your invaluable knowledge and experience with us. May it be of great benefit to all, and may you be rewarded for your service. To the organizers, I congratulate and thank you for organising a conference of such scale smoothly (albeit delayed) and successfully beating expectations. I pray that next year’s conference be far better, In Sha Allah.