WTFatwa! Halal Pork?

By: Cihan Kaan

When I first heard of ‘Halal Pork’ it was in French and already making waves in Europe.  ‘Bakon Halal’ as it was called was a specialty on the menu at Muslim Beurger, a fast growing chain which started in Paris. ‘Beurger’ is not a typo or my attempt at dressing up a fast food joint. The French word “Beur” is slang for a second-generation North Africans living in France.  The target audience clearly referred to in a catchy title.

Along with other treats like Double Koull Cheese and Livin’ Large Shish Kerbarge (I made the last one up), the business quickly got bankrolled and became a franchise.  The rest is history.

This little piece of our collective post-911 Muslim history, as it may, is little known.  And though as I still find myself explaining, “No brother, there is no such thing as halal pork,” every year a mysterious Dutch entrepreneur pops up selling it.  He’s not selling ‘Bakon Halal’ which is Muslim Beurger’s own concoction of fig flavored beef, no, it is actually the forbidden other white meat. For the purposes of this article he shall remain nameless but a literal ton of what he calls halal pork goes up for auction on alibaba wholesale then quickly gets removed.  For good reason.

We put careful consideration into what we ingest analyzing salads for pink meat, avoiding Chinese take out and scrutinizing gummy bear ingredients.  The time we’ve spent intentionally avoiding (and sometimes accidentally consuming) pork products could be spent wiser.  Which is why I’m writing this article.

Welcome to the future, we now have what is being termed an ‘electronic nose’ that “sniffs out pork.” It is tentatively known as R.I.P.H.A.L, or Rapid Identification of Pork for Halal Authentication technology and it works by accumulating data of a given odor into a trademarked VaporPrint.  Supposedly, according to the prototype literature each type of meat produces distinctly different VaporPrints.  I’ll avoid the science here but odors have chemical makeups.  The ‘electronic nose’ samples the meat through a needle and whallah, quick verification.  Of course, if the meat is not pork there is still the task of determining if it was properly prepped.  This is an aspect for which technology will most certainly fail us as digging into foods past life is difficult even for the fastest computer.  Maybe in the distant future we will all have an Ultimate Halal Authenticator or U.H.A.L.A that reads back on-the-spot judgments.  I can see it being misused at Muslim Singles events.

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