edit: i have little experience with the religious subject at hand, and so this should be taken with a healthy share of doubt. i express my gratitude to those who respond to clarify and communicate more accurate and complete information. :)
interestingly, alcohol (ethanol) is not exactly haram. i have seen many instances (primarily from chemstores/chemical suppliers) of ethyl alcohol marked as halal! this article on some malay government website looks to provide a brief overview of the topic. they also had a more lengthy article (doi:10.24191/sl.v18i1.24338) about the subject too, and halal certification services has this (doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2016.10.018) slightly harder to read but still intriguing review.
i am by no means experienced in this subject (if you are feel free to reply!) beyond reading the labels on chemicals and using it for cleaning. in short though i think the important thing for alcohol-containing substances to be halal is that you don’t consume any with too high an ethanol concentration, either if there’s the possibility of intoxication, or poisoning (considered attempted suicide and thus haram, going by the above sources). if its high concentration stuff used for cleaning or production but not in the final product, it can be acceptable, and so can very low concentrations even when consumed (the body would have to ingest so much that it would have other issues like low sodium prior to any intoxication).
remember, sharia law is much like any other form of law: it’s riddled with complexity, opaqueness, and tons of loopholes!
There’s differece of opinion with alcohol. One school of jurisprudence goes by the ruling that it’s the fermentation part that makes it haram, so synthetically made ethanol in a lab isn’t haram if it’s not used in levels that intoxicate, whereas another school says it’s the actual intoxicating property of the chemical that’s haram so you can’t use it unless it’s for necessary medical reasons and there’s no alternative. I don’t know what the other two schools say.
Ooh I actually have a cool example about last “shariah is just a law” part.
Islam is very much flexible in topic of health and you are allowed to use haram items like pork or alcohol products in medicine if no other options available.
Here is the cool part, even tho culturally there is still a lot of pushback and problems, gender dysphoria still falls under “health” and therefore treatments are protected under shariah.
edit: i have little experience with the religious subject at hand, and so this should be taken with a healthy share of doubt. i express my gratitude to those who respond to clarify and communicate more accurate and complete information. :)
interestingly, alcohol (ethanol) is not exactly haram. i have seen many instances (primarily from chemstores/chemical suppliers) of ethyl alcohol marked as halal! this article on some malay government website looks to provide a brief overview of the topic. they also had a more lengthy article (doi:10.24191/sl.v18i1.24338) about the subject too, and halal certification services has this (doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2016.10.018) slightly harder to read but still intriguing review.
i am by no means experienced in this subject (if you are feel free to reply!) beyond reading the labels on chemicals and using it for cleaning. in short though i think the important thing for alcohol-containing substances to be halal is that you don’t consume any with too high an ethanol concentration, either if there’s the possibility of intoxication, or poisoning (considered attempted suicide and thus haram, going by the above sources). if its high concentration stuff used for cleaning or production but not in the final product, it can be acceptable, and so can very low concentrations even when consumed (the body would have to ingest so much that it would have other issues like low sodium prior to any intoxication).
remember, sharia law is much like any other form of law: it’s riddled with complexity, opaqueness, and tons of loopholes!
There’s differece of opinion with alcohol. One school of jurisprudence goes by the ruling that it’s the fermentation part that makes it haram, so synthetically made ethanol in a lab isn’t haram if it’s not used in levels that intoxicate, whereas another school says it’s the actual intoxicating property of the chemical that’s haram so you can’t use it unless it’s for necessary medical reasons and there’s no alternative. I don’t know what the other two schools say.
Ooh I actually have a cool example about last “shariah is just a law” part.
Islam is very much flexible in topic of health and you are allowed to use haram items like pork or alcohol products in medicine if no other options available.
Here is the cool part, even tho culturally there is still a lot of pushback and problems, gender dysphoria still falls under “health” and therefore treatments are protected under shariah.
Hence wikipedia articles like Transgender Rights in Iran have very surprising starts.