Ḥalāl linguistic meaning understanding among Non-Muslim in Malaysia

Abstract

Ḥalāl discourse is not only familiar to Muslims, but also non-Muslims in Malaysia. This study discusses the response from non-Muslim in Malaysian ḥalāl discourse, with the objectives of identifying the ḥalāl linguistic meaning among non-Muslim in Malaysia. The discussion of meaning is based on the language interpretation which used in Sunni pragmatic research, such as how language is perceived either literal or figurative meanings based Mohamed & Yunis (2013) and Russell (1940) approach that focuses on the meaning and fact in his language theory. The data in the discussion related to the non-Muslims response towards 5 categories of ḥalāl implementation, namely ḥalāl food, ḥalāl certification, ḥalāl sign, ḥalāl name or brand of the product and ḥalāl supply chain. The data were the controversial ḥalāl issues from 2014 to 2018 taken from local newspapers such as Star Online. The discussion demonstrates that the understanding of non-Muslims linguistically can be traced from the keywords, such as understanding, compliance, awareness, acceptance and recognised which are denotatively having positive meanings. However, there are other words denotatively having negative meanings such as confusion and sensitivity. The result also shows ḥalāl does not only concern Muslims but non-Muslims as well. In principle, Islam does not prohibit non-Muslims from consuming the products offered based on guidelines recommended in Islam. The findings reveal that ḥalāl understanding in Malaysia still needs to be strengthened among non-Muslims. Therefore, the understanding and knowledge of ḥalāl implementation is the main pillar in maintaining the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in this society.