{"id":16899,"date":"2013-02-21T17:49:23","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T22:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=16899"},"modified":"2013-02-21T23:28:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T04:28:11","slug":"all-ceylon-jamiyathul-ulama-asks-traders-to-offer-halal-certified-products-to-muslims-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=16899","title":{"rendered":"All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ulama asks Traders to Offer Halal Certified Products to Muslims only"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE-<\/strong> Islamic clerics in Sri Lanka tried to calm mounting religious tensions in the majority Buddhist nation Thursday by telling stores not to sell halal-slaughtered meat to non-Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>Food manufacturers have been labelling all their products &#8220;halal&#8221; for convenience, meaning until now non-Muslims have not had any choice in the matter.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nBuddhist hardliners argue they should not be forced to consume food that is prepared according to Islamic religious rites. They say the halal certificate represents the &#8220;undue influence&#8221; of Muslims and is an &#8220;affront&#8221; to non-Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>The halal method of killing an animal requires it to have its throat slit.<\/p>\n<p>The clerics&#8217; move to diffuse tensions came after thousands of nationalist Buddhists staged a rally last weekend to demand that all shops in the country clear their stocks of halal food by April.<\/p>\n<p>Nationalist Buddhist monks and their supporters also launched a campaign to boycott halal-slaughtered meat as well as other products which carry a halal certificate.<\/p>\n<p>Muslim clerics said the boycott organised by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, has created tensions that could erupt into full-blown violence in a country recovering from decades of ethnic war.<\/p>\n<p>And the the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), Sri Lanka&#8217;s main body of Islamic clergy, which issues the halal certificates, Thursday asked retailers to ensure certified products were offered only to Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to promote peaceful co-existence and harmony,&#8221; ACJU president Mufti Rizwe told reporters in Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also a Buddhist, urged monks not to incite religious hatred and violence amid reports of a wave of attacks and intimidation targeting Muslim businesses.<\/p>\n<p>The Buddhist Force has disassociated itself from the violence, saying there are &#8220;duplicate groups&#8221; pretending to be them and stirring up trouble.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka&#8217;s ethnic civil war claimed at least 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009, when Tamil rebels were crushed in a major military offensive.<\/p>\n<p>Less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka&#8217;s population of 20 million is Muslim.<\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton16899\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D16899&amp;text=All%20Ceylon%20Jamiyathul%20Ulama%20asks%20Traders%20to%20Offer%20Halal%20Certified%20Products%20to%20Muslims%20only&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE- Islamic clerics in Sri Lanka tried to calm mounting religious tensions in the majority Buddhist nation Thursday by telling stores not to sell halal-slaughtered meat to non-Muslims. Food manufacturers have been labelling all their products &#8220;halal&#8221; for convenience, meaning until now non-Muslims have not had any choice in the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16899"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16939,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions\/16939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}