Was following tweets recently and saw that Halal Bak Kut Teh is the latest bone of contention. How interesting. Anyone care to comment on this? thanks to @lotsofcravings, @alilfatmonkey and asianmalaysian for bringing this up.

More publicity for the Minister's campaign:

Jakim: Use another name for bak kut teh halal


THE use of the term bak kut teh halal will not only confuse Muslims but it is also against fiqah (Islamic way of life and practices), reported Utusan Malaysia.

The daily quoted Islamic Development Department of Malaysia (Jakim) deputy director-general Lokman Abdul Rahman as saying that bak kut teh could not be deemed halal because it still carried an “illegal name” under Islamic law.

He stressed that the dish would not be issued any halal certificate based on procedures set by Jakim.

“There may be people who will apply for the certificate but Jakim will not certify the food as halal because it is very clear that it does not comply with Islamic law.

“We are worried that the Muslim community will misunderstand that the food is halal if we issue the certificate,” he said.

Lokman said the name bak kut teh referred to soup and pork used to prepare the dish.

“My recommendation is for the relevant parties to use another name for bak kut teh halal,” he said.

He was commenting on bak kut teh halal introduced at the Fabulous Food 1Malaysia — Malaysia Restaurant Food Festival ceremony at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Bak kut teh halal ingredients include chicken, seafood and vegetables, in place of pork, which is normally used for the dish.

Marriot Hotel executive chef Zaffar Abdul Samad said the dish was 100% halal in terms of its recipe and ingredients.

Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia secretary-general Datuk Dr Maamor Osman also disagreed with the introduction of bak kut teh halal.

“I am worried that misusing the term will slowly reduce the disinclination of Muslims towards pork. I hope Jakim can take strict measures to ensure that the food does not get halal certification,” he said.
Heres the star news link

I cant help but wonder what these people would make of the name "chee cheong fan" if they knew the direct translation. Halal kopitiams better either scratch the dish of their menus or come up with a new name for the noodles if they dont want to lose their certification.

A bit of news from the Malaysian insider as well. http://bit.ly/7Rt6KP

The story has reached as far as the Philipines:

"Malaysia Muslims sour over revamped pork soup
(philstar.com) Updated December 22, 2009 02:51 PM

KUALA LUMPUR (AP) – A Malaysian government-backed campaign to popularize a well-known ethnic Chinese soup by making a version that avoids pork and fulfills Islamic dietary rules sparked criticism Tuesday by activists who fear it will confuse Muslims.

A halal version of "bak kut teh," a herbal broth traditionally made with pork ribs, was introduced at a Tourism Ministry food fair last weekend to promote local cuisine. The new version contains chicken, seafood or vegetables instead of pork, which Islam prohibits.

However, some Muslims object to the use of "bak kut teh" to identify the revamped recipe, saying the name is synonymous with pork among people in Muslim-majority Malaysia and neighboring Singapore, where the dish is beloved by the ethnic Chinese community.

"Bak kut teh" means "meat bone tea" in a Chinese dialect, but the meat is generally understood to be pork.

"This will cause misunderstanding among the public. It might even lead some Muslims to wonder whether it is all right to eat pork," said Ma'mor Osman, secretary general of the Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association.

The association plans to send a complaint to the Tourism Ministry, urging it to find a new name for the halal version, Ma'mor told The Associated Press.

The Department of Islamic Development, a government group that oversees Islamic policies, reportedly said it won't allow the dish to be formally certified as halal if it continues to be named "bak kut teh."

Islamic authorities are worried that Muslims will wrongly assume that the soup's pork version is suitable for consumption, the department's deputy director, Lokman Abdul Rahman, told the Utusan Malaysia newspaper.

Tourism Ministry officials who could comment on the matter were not immediately available. The ministry has spearheaded many culinary promotion efforts this year, hoping to project Malaysia as a travel destination for a wide variety of unique dishes."

The unkindest cut of all comes from an indonesian news report where the picture used is the Singaporean version of Bah Kut Teh instead of the Malaysian version. On the other hand, some Malaysians may be feeling grateful for this mistake.

From another Malaysian Insider article


From another Malaysian Insider article, it seems thats some associations are also complaining about the names of other food items like beef bacon.

some people have pointed out that if this were the case then no exception should be made at all... all food should be renamed to as not to confused our muslim bretheren. I think the article by The Malaysian Insider has put the issue succintly.

personally i don't really care what the food is name, after all a rose by any other name is still a rose. But hey if the people in charge thinks our muslim brothers and sisters are so easily duped, who am i to argue...

Heres a column in the Star on the matter. The author gives a light hearted take on the matter pointing out that "This would mean that we would also need to find new names for “turkey ham”, “beef bacon” and “hamburger”, stuff that many Muslims Malaysians have been chucking down their throats for years."

While we Malaysians have become all but resigned to reports of various local authorities coming up with statements like these and have long since learned not to take them seriously for the sake of our own sanity, we have to realise that there are serious implications. These stories dont just stay in the country in this day and age. Most of us would not have even known about the PWTC event at all if not for this news report (which speaks volumes for the promotion skills of a certain Ministry but thats a story for another day). Now because of it, the matter may yet be reported by foreign papers that may have never mentioned Malaysia since the cowhead protest in Shah Alam. Besides the controversy of the Tourism Minister's claims about food hijacking, this story has already recieved more overseas coverage than the entire food campaign. Face it people; it is on stories like these that we will all be rightly or wrongly judged.

When I was in UK there was this favourite Pizza place that I used to go to called Pizza Co. I think they were manned by a couple of Turkey immigrants or perhaps Lebanese. Anyway, they had many many different toppings. Chicken, turkey, beef, bacon, ham and all the vegs. Thing was, this place was halal. So I asked them how on earth can it be halal when you're serving ham? So the guy popped under the counter and brought a tin of halal 'ham' (complete with the halal stamp from some arab country or something). Apparently, everything in the shop was a veg substitute made from tofu. So even the chicken was actually imitation chicken.

So, if you take it at face value all the food stuff was actually halal in nature.

But in Islam, we concern ourselves not only with the outer form but also the intention or derivation of something. So with regards to eating pseudo pork, or wine for that matter... it should be regarded as haram. It even extends to, say I'm drinking a glass of chrysanthemum tea and decide to call out loud that it was in fact piss... then that drink is now haram to me. It distinguishes an act of a person as haram or wrong if 'fitnah' can be arise from it. Fitnah is closely translated to wrongful accusation. True its 'wrongful accusation', but in Islam you're not even suppose to do things that come close to it so that there will be no misunderstanding.

Sometimes, children and non muslims will come out and say that Islam is way too rigid. And I guess in one perspective they may be correct. But meet a strict ballet teacher or the dictatorial corporate finance boss and they can even be more rigid and they are just human beings restricted to one field of study. When the whole world is your congregation, being lenient would mean utter confusion. Even with strict laws and guidelines, we have so many muslims misinterpreting their faith every which way, most times to err on the side of their benefit.

Hope that clears up some.

Hi TehBeng,

I dont quite see how the intention of something and the derivation of something can be conflated to mean the same thing. Especially when we are talking about a description. It would seem to me that the fundamental intention of language is to be understood and that the only intention that should be ascribed to a description is the desire to describe something as accurately and succintly as possible. If beef is prepared in a way that taste most like bacon,why shouldnt it be described as beef bacon? When describing a soup that is exactly like bah kut teh in every respect except that the usual pork ingredient is substituted with a Halal alternative, why reach for a convoluted naming alternative? From a non-muslim perspective, the fact that chinese vegetarians eat mock meat dishes and describe them accordingly does not make them any less vegetarian or put them on a slippery slope to a carnivore binge. Its simply the best way to describe the taste and texture of those vegetarian dishes. Nor is "chee cheong fan" a slippery slope to anyone munching on pork instestines. All it portends is that the shape of the noodles must have looked remarkably like pork instetines to the old chinese soul that named them. As a non-muslim, I respect your intepretation of your own faith and certainly mean no disrespect. However, from the example in your own post and the commentary by a muslim in the Star I posted above, there seem to be muslims who take a different view suggesting that the matter is not as settled as your post suggests. Still, I take it that your intention was merely to state your opinion which I did find quite interesting.

In any case, I could not think of a more importune time for JAKIM to make its statement. It at least shows that JAKIM did not take the trouble to liase with its fellow Government Agency which sponsored the event before opening fire in the press. If this sort of press is the only kind of "publicity" that a foreigner receives in respect of Malaysian food, its not hard to see why he might choose to have his bah kut teh or any other dish Malaysian dish in Singapore instead- without any highjacking efforts required on the part of the Island State.

A-M, its not a question of language and definition per se. The Way of Islam regards 3 aspects of 'doing' for something to count.

1. Niat (intention)
2. Oral (words and expression)
3. Practice (physical enactment)

The naming of something bacon does not immediately make it Haram for a muslim to eat. Because although bacon originally meant "back and sides of a hog salted and dried or smoked; usually sliced thin and fried " it is now done with beef as an alternative and thus described as beef bacon. The bacon now becomes the method in which the beef is prepared. The beef however must still be halal in the first place, to clarify.

When I talked about the 'piss' drink, it is an example. Although the niat is taken as a joke or acting, the oral expression can raise doubts or fitnah. Thus it becomes haram to be consumed. A 3rd party having not heard the statement may come by and take the drink and its not haram to him though. Because the nature of the drink has not changed. It is only the aspect in relation to the parties that are involved in the expression.

Before I sound as if its a complicated thing, I just want to say its not. Just call spades, spades and you're basically home free. As long as the intrinsic nature of the food in question was halal in the first place.

If for example someone with extremely bad taste made a cadaver baby out of chicken roast for example and called for a cannibal party, then its haram. Everyone in there may know its made out of chicken and no one is actually a cannibal or vampire or whatever and its all for fun, but it would still be haram.

As for your POV on Jakim... yeah they and every other organisation in this country need to buck up. Look at nazri mouthing off and making his PM look like a fool. Typically these people have no real organisation or policies. Its all by the seat of the pants kinda thing.

Most Italian cooking, French cooking, dimsum, beef bacon, etc are non-halal originally. At what stage, it become halal?

If dimsum, beef bacon can be halal, why not lamb bah kut teh?

Teh Beng,

The issue arose because JAKIM disputed the halal nature name of the dish not the ingredients of the dish itself. I understand from your post that any drink or dish that is in of itself halal can be rendered haram simply because the expression of the name (ie- using your piss drink example) may raise a doubt as to whether it is halal or not even though that was not the intention of the naming of the dish. Given the current example, if people had previously no doubt as to the halal nature of the halal form of the dish before reading or hearing the statements of protesters at the PWTC fair, it is arguable that the protesters may have rendered an otherwise halal dish haram by raising doubt with their statements. Somewhere along the line, musnt there be be a test of what is a reasonable doubt and what is not for this principle? If someone claims to be in doubt as to whether hot dogs contain dog meat, can a line be drawn or would hot dogs have to be avoided so that there will be no misunderstanding?

I note that your roast chicken example would render a lot of halloween treats haram by implication.Still, it does raise issues seeing as, in your example, everyone knows its chicken. Would that mean that loh shu fan and chee cheong fan are haram as they are noodles shaped to resemble decidedly haram items and named accordingly? Is Okra halal but ladies fingers haram? Again, Id like to make clear that my intention is not to mock or insult but understand the perimeters of the underlying principle.

[Edited]

Shaping food for example in the form of piglets or dogs and cats does not necessarily make it haram. I myself have gulp down a lot of 'cat's' and 'dogs' for instance.

In the case of hot dogs, back in the early 80's there was a lot of uncertainty towards the 'halal'ness' of it. It took much persuasion and aggressiveness by ramli burger to get the muslim community to start eating it. Much of it coming from education. And malaysians as a whole (including malay themselves) are known for the creativity they employ when naming dishes.

We of course have the ubiquitous air mata kuching, sup torpedo (which is just a phallus soup btw), kuih taik ayam (again a gross name for something which is pretty good) and etc etc. In cases such as this, Syariah is employed like Tort. (because even in proper form, what was halal and haram was really decided back when the Prophet could lead by example. After that, we only have guidelines like haram for carnivores, amphibians, poisonous and harmful food, dirty and maimed or sick, hunters, to name a few.) Even so, there were also food categories that the Prophet did not himself imbibe in but did not also forbid. Like Dhab (which amazingly looks like a reptile - another haram thing).

Going back to Tort. Well in this instance, when the general populace have adapted the use of a word generally meaning something into something else, then we undertake to recognise the word for what it's generally understood for. In the instance of Indonesia, they will say pantat. To malaysians this is rude because it means vagina, but actually it means bontot or butt in Indonesia. From there on, we have to use acceptance and common sense to ensure understanding. Suffice to say, lady's fingers is halal despite its name.

Still the issue of Halal and Haram is very peculiar. We have God's warning not to halal the haram and not to haram the halal. So believers are particular about this. They can easily sin if they label something as haram even though its halal and vice versa. Even so, we do politicise the issue a bit. Most probably because they do not see the full implications of their actions. Look at it this way, cigarettes are haram. Why? Because it harms. Yet muslims still puff away, making their own interpretations. Like, 'uh, I've been smoking since i was 16 and now I'm 61 and still hale and hearthy. That guy was a vegan and he died of cancer so is vege haram?' Human nature is such where there is a will there is a way. So if we want to eat or imbibe in something, we make every case for it and if not, then we make every case against it. This hoo hah about bak kut teh could even simply be a way to show that work is being done... or it could actually be something which is sincere. God only knows.

So you can see the issue can be taken as something out of proportion or it could just be that everyone is confused. For me, I abide by wasatiah which is taking the middle road. We have the quran and hadith to guide us and God gave us both nafsu (desires), iman (will) and akal (intelligence). The true test is really whether we have faith in what we do is right or wrong. Truly, if one cuts away the nonsense and listen to the heart's voice or intuition, you would generally know what is right or wrong. So in the end that's all that matters.

To put it simply, from my limited understanding I believe that calling halal bak kut teh, Bak Kut Teh can be a misrepresentation. Particularly because there is already in existence for example things like chik kut teh which is chicken. So if we can name bak kut teh made from chicken as chik kut teh, surely we can find a better name for the vege substitute version. It used to be Quorn has been made synonymous with artificial meat replacement (made from tofu derivatives). Maybe we can invent another term for the locally made meat substitutes. The monks who made all that vege meat dishes really are on to something because their substitute meat tastes really good (much better than quorn I can attest to it). But no one knows what to call it and there really should be a name for it I think.

Simply calling it vegetarian doesn't do it justice and can put off some people. Sometimes we expect to see vegetables cooked the vegetarian way not chicken and meat made out of vege substitutes.

Ok, hopefully I've clarified your interest.

Thanks for the clarification which I appreciate. Respectfully, I personally think that chicken bah kut teh should be described as just that; "Chicken bah kut teh" or "Bah kut teh ayam". It accurately describes both the key meat ingredient and the method of preparation. It is unambiguous in meaning and also respects the chinese traditions and heritage that gave rise to the method of preparation. From what you have said, individual muslims (like any other individuals) are going to decide based on their own understanding, wits and predilections on whether they are going to eat something or or not regardless of what it is called. From my personal observation of my muslims friends, they would not be so easily confused as to matters of their faith. Anyway, have a Happy New Year!

Eh, i thought if we use chicken and other spices, we call it Chick-Kut-Teh instead of Bak Kut Teh..so, what's the issue? Why promote it as Bak Kut Teh 'Halal' in the first place?

That's why you must read the whole topic to understand. Its not chicken.

"Islamic authorities are worried that Muslims will wrongly assume that the soup's pork version is suitable for consumption, the department's deputy director, Lokman Abdul Rahman, told the Utusan Malaysia newspaper."

Talk about patronising. They must think every muslim in this country is an idiot. This means they are not even doing it for the right reasons. jeez.

hmm then they must also change the term for bacon?

Don't make me cane you. ;p

who??? me??? LOL