Skip to main content

COVID-19 Vaccine Controversy: Halal or Haram?

As the whole world is still struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the question whether the vaccines, recently produced by some companies, are permissible for use under Islamic law has triggered a lot of discussions among Muslims.

In Mumbai, Muslim scholars have said that any vaccine with pork gelatin is not permissible for Muslims under Islamic laws.  

“There are reports of a Chinese vaccine with parts of pig’s body. As pig is Haram for Muslims, a vaccine containing its body parts cannot be allowed,” Raza Academy’s Secretary-General, Saeed Noorie, said in a statement cited by India Today.

📚 Read Also: Is COVID-19 Vaccine Permissible for Muslims to Take?

Sunni Muslim scholars are raising alarm about a Chinese vaccine which allegedly contains pork gelatin.

In a video statement, Noorie appealed to the Government of India not to order the particular Chinese vaccine with pork gelatin.

“Any vaccine ordered or made in India, the government should give a list of vaccine content to the ulemas so that they can make announcements regarding the use of the vaccine.”

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.

Spokespeople for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have maintained 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.

Allowed?

On the other hand, UAE’s highest Islamic authority, the UAE Fatwa Council, has ruled that coronavirus vaccines are permissible for Muslims even if they contain pork gelatin, Free Press Journal reported.

Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, the chairman of the UAE highest Islamic authority, said that if there are no alternatives, the coronavirus vaccines would not be subject to Islam’s restrictions on pork because of the higher need to “protect the human body”.

The council added that in this case, the pork gelatin is considered medicine, not food, with multiple vaccines already shown to be effective against a highly contagious virus that “poses a risk to the entire society”.

Bin Bayyah’s opinion resonates with an earlier fatwa issued by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore.

The opinion, published earlier this month, quoted an earlier fatwa saying that “where there are no alternatives, products that contain prohibited ingredients can still be used for treatment because the objective is to save lives.”

“The impure substances or prohibited items used in upstream processes would have undergone multiple layers of chemical processes such as filtration that would render them undetectable or negligible in the final product. 

“In Muslim jurisprudence, these processes are similar to istihala where the original substance changes its form and nature and no longer becomes prohibited.”

The post COVID-19 Vaccine Controversy: Halal or Haram? appeared first on About Islam.



source https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/science-muslim-issues/covid-19-vaccine-controversy-halal-or-haram/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

List of Times and Places Where Dua is Accepted

A short reminder regarding the recommended times of dua . And I think what you need to know here is that the recommended times of dua or recommended things that can cause your dua to be accepted, can be divided into two sort of large groups: Am I Good Enough to Make Dua for Myself? Situations where your dua is accepted. Times where your dua is accepted So I’m going to very briefly mention them one after the other as much as possible. As for situations where your dua has been accepted: – The person who has been wronged or oppressed . – A person who finds themselves in severe difficulty after a calamity has struck. – The person who is traveling. – Someone who is fasting. – The one who is reciting the Quran or has just recited the Quran – Someone who is performing Hajj or Umrah or jihad. – The one who is making dua for someone in their absence . Because we know that when you make dua for someone in his absence an angel says: “ Ameen and to you”. – A person...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Ghuraba (The Strangers): Nasheed with English Subtitles

Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings the strangers. (Sahih Muslim 145) This famous nasheed has many versions; this one is from Muhammad al-Salman and has the subtitles in English embedded. [We are] strangers and we do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah  […] Transliteration to help in the pronounciation:  Ghurabaa’ wa li ghairillaahi laa nahnil jibaa Aisha Stacey  wrote in an article for Aboutislam.net : “I think that many of you would agree that being Muslim in the 21st century makes you well acquainted with being strange. It might even be a metaphor for random, as in you have been randomly selected. […] many converts to Islam will tell you about feeling as if they were strangers, before finding Islam. They will speak of feeling that they belonged somewhere else that their lives were just slightly off center. They often speak about a vague sense of knowing they were not like everyone else...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Taqwa – Living the Main Purpose of Ramadan

Taqwa is a major purpose for the month of Ramadan. The people of taqwa are those who do the things that they are commanded and avoid the things which Allah has made prohibitive. And evidently, to reach a state of taqwa requires vigilance, it requires patience and sincerity. The verse is pertaining to fasting I found in a single set of verses in chapter 2 starting at verse 183: O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous. ( 2:183 ) A Collective Act of Worship Allah is telling us that fasting has been made obligatory and then Allah tells us that just as it was prescribed for those before us. We often get asked this question in Ramadan, “how’s the fast going for us?” And if we gave ourselves a moment to think about it, we see that Allah Most High has made the fast inside the month of Ramadan easy for us because we know that there is a collective spirit to fasting; we know that we’re not alone in this ...
Post a Comment
Read More »