Locally prominent Islamic religious teacher Ustaz Kazim Elias rejected the fatwa issued by Dr Yusuf Al-Qaradawi who said that animal gelatine including pigs is halal to be used if it is transformed into other materials.

In an article by Sinar Harian on Sunday, Kazim said Muslims must adhere to stipulations outlined by the religious sect (mazhab) which has been used as a guide for Muslims in the country.

“All four religious sects uphold to the fact that anything which has connection to pigs can’t be eaten as everything that goes into our body will be part of us.

“If the food is haram, hell is the place for us and if the food is halal then heaven is the place for us,” he said.

According to him, the law involving halal and haram food is a serious issue and should not be under-estimated by any party.

Last Saturday, Perlis ex-Mufti, Prof Madya Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin supported Al-Qaradawi’s opinion that gelatines or DNAs derived from pigs can be considered halal if it has undergone a transformational process according to an Islam concept, ‘istihalah’.

Elaborating on Al-Qaradawi’s argument, Dr Asri explained how something that is considered haram can be halal if it uses the istihalah concept.

Istihalah is a transformation and change from one thing to another which covers the exchange of a fact and nature of the material.

When something dirty has gone through a process that cleanses it from its original nature, it will not be evaluated because it has transformed into something else.

“A simple explanation; change in a material after going through a certain process is known as istihalah,” he added.

Dr Asri explained this through his Facebook account where he used the example of fertilizer usage in planting banana trees.

Previously, director-general of Health Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah confirmed that the two products were detected to have contained porcine, and the analysis results had also gone viral on the social media.

However, a test by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) confirmed that the two products are halal.