Concern among Muslims over halal status of COVID-19 vaccine

2020/12/21 Leave a comment

Sigh over those who interpret these vaccines as being haram compared to the majority consensus:

In October, Indonesian diplomats and Muslim clerics stepped off a plane in China. While the diplomats were there to finalize deals to ensure millions of doses reached Indonesian citizens, the clerics had a much different concern: Whether the COVID-19 vaccine was permissible for use under Islamic law.

As companies race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and countries scramble to secure doses, questions about the use of pork products — banned by some religious groups — has raised concerns about the possibility of disrupted immunization campaigns.

Pork-derived gelatin has been widely used as a stabilizer to ensure vaccines remain safe and effective during storage and transport. Some companies have worked for years to develop pork-free vaccines: Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has produced a pork-free meningitis vaccine, while Saudi- and Malaysia-based AJ Pharma is currently working on one of their own.

But demand, existing supply chains, cost and the shorter shelf life of vaccines not containing porcine gelatin means the ingredient is likely to continue to be used in a majority of vaccines for years, said Dr. Salman Waqar, general secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association.

Spokespeople for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have said that pork products are not part of their COVID-19 vaccines. But limited supply and preexisting deals worth millions of dollars with other companies means that some countries with large Muslim populations, such as Indonesia, will receive vaccines that have not yet been certified to be gelatin-free.

This presents a dilemma for religious communities, including Orthodox Jews and Muslims, where the consumption of pork products is deemed religiously unclean, and how the ban is applied to medicine, he said.

“There’s a difference of opinion amongst Islamic scholars as to whether you take something like pork gelatin and make it undergo a rigorous chemical transformation,” Waqar said. “Is that still considered to be religiously impure for you to take?”

The majority consensus from past debates over pork gelatin use in vaccines is that it is permissible under Islamic law, as “greater harm” would occur if the vaccines weren’t used, said Dr. Harunor Rashid, an associate professor at the University of Sydney.

There’s a similar assessment by a broad consensus of religious leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community as well.

“According to the Jewish law, the prohibition on eating pork or using pork is only forbidden when it’s a natural way of eating it,” said Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, a rabbinical organization in Israel.

If “it’s injected into the body, not (eaten) through the mouth,” then there is “no prohibition and no problem, especially when we are concerned about sicknesses,” he said.

Yet there have been dissenting opinions on the issue — some with serious health consequences for Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, some 225 million.

In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the Muslim clerical body that issues certifications that a product is halal, or permissible under Islamic law, decreed that the measles and rubella vaccines were “haram,” or unlawful, because of the gelatin. Religious and community leaders began to urge parents to not allow their children to be vaccinated.

“Measles cases subsequently spiked, giving Indonesia the third-highest rate of measles in the world,” said Rachel Howard, director of the health care market research group Research Partnership.

A decree was later issued by the Muslim clerical body saying it was permissible to receive the vaccine, but cultural taboos still led to continued low vaccination rates, Howard said.

“Our studies have found that some Muslims in Indonesia feel uncomfortable with accepting vaccinations containing these ingredients,” even when the Muslim authority issues guidelines saying they are permitted, she said.

Governments have taken steps to address the issue. In Malaysia, where the halal status of vaccines has been identified as the biggest issueamong Muslim parents, stricter laws have been enacted so that parents must vaccinate their children or face fines and jail time. In Pakistan, where there has been waning vaccine confidencefor religious and political reasons, parents have been jailed for refusing to vaccinate their children against polio.

But with rising vaccine hesitancy and misinformation spreading around the globe, including in religious communities, Rashid said community engagement is “absolutely necessary.”

“It could be disastrous,” if there is not strong community engagement from governments and health care workers, he said.

In Indonesia, the government has already said it will include the Muslim clerical body in the COVID-19 vaccine procurement and certification process.

“Public communication regarding the halal status, price, quality and distribution must be well-prepared,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in October.

While they were in China in the fall, the Indonesian clerics inspected China’s Sinovac Biotech facilities, and clinical trials involving some 1,620 volunteers are also underway in Indonesia for the company’s vaccine. The government has announced several COVID-19 vaccine procurement deals with the company totaling millions of doses.

Sinovac Biotech, as well as Chinese companies Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics — which all have COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage clinical trials and deals selling millions of doses around the world — did not respond to Associated Press requests for ingredient information.

In China, none of the COVID-19 vaccines has been granted final market approval, but more than 1 million health care workers and others who have been deemed at high risk of infection have received vaccines under emergency use permission. The companies have yet to disclose how effective the vaccines are or possible side effects.

Pakistan is late-stage clinical trials of the CanSino Biologics vaccine. Bangladesh previously had an agreement with Sinovac Biotech to conduct clinical trials in the country, but the trials have been delayed due to a funding dispute. Both countries have some of the largest Muslim populations in the world.

While health care workers on the ground in Indonesia are still largely engaged in efforts to contain the virus as numbers continue to surge, Waqar said government efforts to reassure Indonesians will be key to a successful immunization campaign as COVID-19 vaccines are approved for use.

But, he said, companies producing the vaccines must also be part of such community outreach.

“The more they are transparent, the more they are open and honest about their product, the more likely it is that there are communities that have confidence in the product and will be able to have informed discussions about what it is they want to do,” he said.

“Because, ultimately, it is the choice of individuals.”

Source: Concern among Muslims over halal status of COVID-19 vaccine

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What can the Muslim world do to save the Uighurs and Islam in China?

2019/12/03 1 Comment

Good and unless I am missing it, all too rare commentary:

Between Aug. 16 and Aug. 25, I was in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China. Invited by the State Council Information Office of China and Xinjiang, I was part of a group of journalists who were sent to visit three major cities: Urumqi, Aksu, and Kashgar. Our visit, which was covered by the Chinese authorities, was stage-managed by Xinjiang authorities who wanted to convince us that things are fine in Xinjiang.

I arrived in Urumqi on Aug. 16. From Aug. 17 to Aug. 19, we attended several lectures by Communist Party officials regarding the history, religion and human rights practices in Xinjiang. In these sessions, Chinese officials like Xu Guixiang and Ma Pinyan delivered the white paper on Xinjiang, issued by the Chinese government.

In these lectures we were told that the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims were migrants in this region, Islam was forcefully imposed by the Arabs and Turks, and Xinjiang has always been part of China. During our stay, we visited the Museum of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Urumqi, the Aksu Museum and the Kashgar Museum. In these museums, the Chinese government is delivering the same message from the white paper: Xinjiang has historically been Chinese, the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are migrants, Islam is a foreign religion and it was imposed by force on the Uighurs.

On top of that, the Chinese were showing to the visitors that Islam was causing much trouble in Xinjiang since it was a source of extremism and terrorism. To fight that, the government of China had built some “Vocational Education and Training Centers” where the extremists were being deradicalized.

On Aug. 20, our hosts sent us to the city of Aksu to visit the Onsu County Vocational Skills Training Center. Here we were supposed to meet the “extremists and terrorists” whom China was “deradicalizing.”

However, when we interviewed the “students” of these “Vocational Training Centers” we found that they were not students but prisoners and they were not terrorists but Muslim believers who were forced to renounce their faith under duress.

Their crimes were practicing Islam, praying to Allah, watching Muslim televangelist videos on the internet, reading the Holy Quran or articles about Islam, writing about Islam, reading Uighur history, wearing hijabs, consuming halal food, burying their dead or marrying according to Islam and preaching Islam to their relatives.

The interviews which I have recorded and uploaded on my YouTube channel prove that the so-called “Vocational Training Centers” are not schools but mass detention centers. These centers are used to mass brainwash the Turkic Muslims of China, be them Uighur, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Tatar, etc, and force them to renounce Islam and their Turkic identity and become Han Chinese.

The claims in vain

Even though China claims that it is fighting “three evils” in Xinjiang, ethnic separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism, in fact, it is fighting the Islamic identity of the Uighurs which makes them a different nation from Han Chinese.

China is fighting against the diversity which in Xinjiang is represented by Islam. It wants to destroy any sign of Islam and totally Sinicize the province, which is a major power hub in China’s One Road, One Belt project.

The Chinese Muslims of Xinjiang, who do not present a separatist threat for China, are also suffering similar problems like the Uighurs. Under the excuse of fighting extremism, the Chinese authorities have declared Islam an extremist religion and do not want a Muslim presence to stand in the center of their Silk Road project which stretches from Beijing into Asia, Africa, and Europe.

The Chinese have banned the preaching and practice of Islam in Xinjiang and all state institutions have been ordered to fight any sign of religious practice (“The Xinjiang Regulation on De-extremification,” Chapter IV, Article 18).

The Xinjiang policy

China is treating Xinjiang as an occupied territory and its native Turkic inhabitants are considered as enemies who must be assimilated or destroyed. Xinjiang authorities are destroying mosques, graveyards and ancient Islamic buildings, and any sign of Islamic civilization that exists.

As Ma Pinyan told us during the lectures in Urumqi, the Chinese government wants to Sinicize Islam. It does not want to see any Arabic or Turkic signs among its Muslims. It does not want them to pray every day, to reject alcohol or women to wear headscarves or marry according to the Quran.

The Sinicization of Islam is legally ordered in “The Xinjiang Regulation on De-extremification,” (Article 4) and the practice of Islam is totally outlawed (“Regulation on De-extremification,” Chapter II, Article 9). Group reading of the Quran, teaching Islam to children, speaking about Islam, having or reading Islamic literature, wearing religious clothing, watching religious shows or advocating Islam in any sense is a crime that is punishable with imprisonment or a long and painful “re-education” in “The Vocational Training Centers.”

The bans on practice

Chinese authorities have prohibited the existence of minarets, the azan (call to prayer), mosques with domes and when a new mosque is ever built it must be shaped in Chinese architecture since the teleological narrative of the Chinese government claims that Islam needs to be Sinicized, and it should not have any Arabic or Turkic symbols.

To force the Sinicization of Islam, Xinjiang authorities sponsor the Islamic Institute of Xinjiang where selected imams are taught a restricted Chinese version of Islam. The campaign of terror against the Muslim population has created a climate of fear. We saw fear in the eyes of all the Muslims that we managed to meet.

The Chinese government has been mass colonizing Xinjiang with Chinese colonists since the 1950s. The Chinese, who in the 1950s counted for 5% to 9% of the population in 2010 count for 40%. The colonization is continuing very aggressively nowadays and it aims to turn the Muslims into a minority.

The Uighurs who are not being arrested and sent to concentration camps (“Vocational Training Centers”) or prisons are forced to take into their homes Chinese colonists who live and sleep in the same house with Muslim families. Many Uighur Muslim women are forced to marry Chinese men. Many Muslims are not allowed to fast during Ramadan.

Muslim restaurants are forbidden to refuse to sell alcohol. The Uighurs who show the slightest sing of Islam are separated from their families have their children taken away and raised by the Chinese. The reign of fear, religious persecution and ethnic assimilation that China is doing in East Turkistan amounts to cultural genocide.

However, while the world is witnessing the mass persecution of Turkic Muslims of China the Muslim world is ignoring it. To the shame of the Muslim world on July 8, 2019, some 22 non-Muslim states signed a letter addressed to the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights calling on China to end its massive detention program in Xinjiang.

While the Muslim majority states were absent from joining this letter, some 20 Muslim states joined a list of 37 countries in support of China for what it is doing in Xinjiang.

In the letter prepared by the Chinese, it was written: “We appreciate China’s commitment to openness and transparency. China has invited several diplomats, international organizations officials and journalists to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counterterrorism and deradicalization there. What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media. We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang…”

After coming back from Xinjiang, as a Muslim scholar and journalist that I am, I would like to tell the Muslim world that the “outcomes of counterterrorism and deradicalization” measures that China is doing in Xinjiang have been the total prohibition of Islam and mass persecution of Muslims.

China invited me like it has invited “several diplomats, international organizations officials and journalists to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counterterrorism and deradicalization there.” However, my findings prove that China is persecuting the Uighurs only because they believe in Islam and are Muslims.

Through this open letter, I would like to appeal to all the Muslim countries who signed the pro-China letter to reconsider their position. I am ready to testify anywhere in the Muslim world about what China is doing with its Muslim populations.

What to do?

The Muslim countries should reconsider their position and urge China to immediately stop the persecution of Muslims and the prohibition of Islam in Xinjiang. China must close its “Vocational Training Centers,” release the religious and political prisoners from prisons and detention camps, abolish the Islamophobic and criminal “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region De-extremification Regulations,” stop sending Chinese colonists to the homes of Uighurs and order all state apparatuses and organs to stop their persecution of Muslims.

China must stop its Islamophobic policies that target the Muslims, their religion, history, culture and way of life. It must stop the forced Sinicization of Turkic people (Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, and et cetera), the destruction of mosques and historical buildings.

It must allow the Muslims of Xinjiang to have passports, to move freely in and out of China, to call the adhan from their mosques, to have halal food, to perform Hajj in Mecca and to be able to teach Islam to their children.

Xinjiang authorities should adopt multiculturalism and accept the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims of China as ordinary citizens equal to native Chinese, and Islam as one of the religions of China. China should revise the way it perceives its history and should accept Islam as an integral part of China and not as an enemy.

By raising these demands and reminding China that the Muslim world is a very important client, the Muslim countries must ask for the protection of their Muslim brethren who, at present, are suffering mass-persecution in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Source: What can the Muslim world do to save the Uighurs and Islam in China?

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Muslim nations are defending China as it cracks down on Muslims, shattering any myths of Islamic solidarity

2019/07/25 Leave a comment

All too true. Will be even harder to take their representations on anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia seriously:

Last week, 22 mostly Western countries launched the world’s first major collective challenge to China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities.

In a joint statement to the High Commissioner of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the nations criticized Beijing for what they described as “disturbing reports of large-scale arbitrary detentions” and “widespread surveillance and restrictions.”
A day later, 37 other countries jumped to Beijing’s defense, with their own letter praising China’s human rights record, and dismissing the reported detention of up to two million Muslims in western China’s Xinjiang region. Nearly half of the signatories were Muslim-majority nations, including Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Chinese government.
“Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers,” the letter said, according to Reuters, which saw a copy of the letter. The letter went on to say that there had been no terrorist attacks in the past three years in the region, and that the people there were happy, fulfilled and secure.
The language in the letter echoed previous claims made by China, which has denied allegations of torture or forced political indoctrination in Xinjiang and said that the camps were “vocational training centers” designed to fight terrorism and combat Islamic extremism.
But reports of China’s abuse of Muslims in the Xinjiang region are rampant. Many Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are believed to have been hauled into conditions that activists call re-education camps. Accounts given to CNN by former detainees describe being forced into the camps under the threat of violence. Detainees who have since fled China say they were forced to renounce Islam while pledging loyalty to China’s ruling Communist party, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations.
So why are some Muslim-majority countries coming to Beijing’s defense?
“I was surprised that (Muslim countries) would put it in writing and put their names on it and sign a document to actually praise China,” Azeem Ibrahim, a director at the DC-based Center for Global Policy, told CNN. “It’s one thing to keep quiet and abstain. It’s another thing to overtly support (the policies) when there was no need for them to do so.”
“I think that’s indicative of the influence and power that China has,” he said.

…

Source: Muslim nations are defending China as it cracks down on Muslims, shattering any myths of Islamic solidarity

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Muslim countries must tackle gender gap head-on

2013/12/02 Leave a comment

Usual good commentary by Sheema Khan on gender equality issues in Muslim countries. Arab Development Report has similar findings (not all Arabs are Muslim and vice versa of course).

Reflects, in part, the weakness of the madrassas, mosques and Imams in not addressing and advocating these issues head-on. As she notes, the efforts to educate women will likely change things in the long-term, but as we have seen, some of the most fundamentalist and radicalized have benefited from good education.

Muslim countries must tackle gender gap head-on – The Globe and Mail.

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