Ebook: Rethinking Halal: Genealogy, Current Trends, and New Interpretations

This book invites to rethink certain aspects of halal, and in particular the issue of the halal market and halal certification in Muslim-minority contexts. Rather than limiting itself to elucidating the doctrinal traditions relating to halal/haram, or on the contrary, focusing only on the external economic, financial, political or demographic factors that explain the changes taking place, Rethinking Halal shows the need to underline the points of balance between the aspects of religious doctrine on the one hand and the economic or political contextual aspects on the other hand. Through the study of various countries, Rethinking Halal demonstrates that Islam underwent a process of positivisation, that is, a kind of reframing of its rules and principles through the lens of a characteristically modern standardising, scientificising, and systematising mind.

Contributors are Ayang Utriza Yakin, Louis-Léon Christians, Baudouin Dupret, Jajat Burhanudin, Syafiq Hasyim, Zaynab El Bernoussi, En-Chieh Chao, Rossella Bottoni, Lauren Crossland-Marr, Konrad Pędziwiatr, Matteo Benussi, Harun Sencal and Mehmet Asutay.

Ayang Utriza Yakin, Ph.D. (2013), Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, is Visiting Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Ghent University and Postdoctoral and Research Fellow at Catholic University of Louvain and Sciences-Po Bordeaux.

Louis-Léon Christians, Ph.D. (2001), Université de Paris XI, is Professor of Law and Religion at Catholic University of Louvain. He has published more than 200 articles and chapters on Law and Religion in European Law, including Islamic norms before the European courts.