MANAGING THE HALAL FOOD RELATED ISSUES IN THE HALAL FOOD CERTIFICATION PROCESS BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF SADD AL-DHARAI'

Background and Purpose: Sadd al-dharai' is a secondary source in Islamic law where it means blocking the means. Sadd al-dharai' is essential for Muslim jurists to deal with the Shariah issues particularly in the halal food industry. This is because the area of the halal food industry has expanded and industrialized to accommodate the demand of the Muslim society that keeps increasing year on year. In this regard, the halal-related issues are getting complex and need Shariah clarification since many new food processing involving critical ingredients, equipment, and multi-process which require meticulous Shariah observation on this matter. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the extent to which the employment of the sadd al-dharai' as a credible tool adopted by Muslim jurist in dealing with the halal-related issues triggered in the halal food supply chain stage based on the halal certification process.   Methodology: This reviewed paper is a qualitative research study in nature where document analysis employed in this study to collect the data.  The Malaysian fatwas, books, articles either in the form of physical or online were gathered to answer the objective of the study. The data collected mostly from the years of 2010 until 2020 unless the related fatwas where the fatwas are subject to its issuance year and suitability. The  researchers  used  several keywords  alternatively like  ‘sadd al-dharai' in halal industry’, ‘fatwa and halal certification’, ‘food industry and Islamic law’ to find out relevant articles related to this discussion on the needs to investigate the employment of sadd al-dharai' in  dealing with the halal-related issues triggered in the halal food supply chain stage based on the halal certification process.  This study further simultaneously adopted the content analysis technique where the data was manually analysed and divided into four major themes based on the objective of the study.     Findings: The study has indicated that sadd al-dharai' has its peculiar function in many aspects of the Malaysia halal certification process in Malaysia, and it could be viewed based on the two approaches, namely the establishment of the halal regulatory framework and the fatwa issuance. The principle of preventing the negative aspects must take precedence, in accordance with the rule “dar’u al mafasid muqaddam ‘ala jalb al-mashalih”  by adopting several preventive actions is very significant in ensuring the halal food products reach the consumers are halalan tayyibban.   Contributions:  This study suggests that the Muslim jurists need to take into consideration the sadd al-dharai‘ as one of the sources of Shariah in ensuring the management of the halal certification process is efficient and in line with maqasid al-Shariah. Besides, Muslim consumers could also access halal food products that are free from harmful elements.   Keywords: Halal certification, halal food, sadd al-dharai', food safety, food ingredients.   Cite as: Ruzulan, Z., Mana, B., Tumiran, M. A., & Jamaludin, M. A. (2023). Managing the halal food related issues in the halal food certification process based on the concept of sadd al-dharai'. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(1), 429-445. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss1pp429-445