Soft
Drinks Containing Alcohol:Permissible?
By
Fiqh Council of North America
"Some
soft drinks contain a tiny amount of alcohol which help
add flavors that are considered part of what is known as
the trade secrets. According to the rules of eating and
drinking in the Islamic legal law, such tiny amount of
alcohol that is added doesn’t render the food or the
soft drink prohibited."
Question:
Could you please furnish me with a fatwa regarding the
use of alcohol in soft drinks such as Coca-Cola? Your
earliest response will be very much appreciated.
Answer:
It is well known that some soft drinks, such as
Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, contain among their ingredients
a tiny amount of alcohol, which is used to dissolve
some constituents of the drinks such as color, flavor,
etc.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, for example, contain
different types of flavors, considered to be part of
the trade secrets; these flavors dissolve in alcohol,
which is no more than two to three parts in one
thousand (0.03-0.02 %) in these drinks.
Such soft drinks are considered to be permissible or halal
from the Islamic point of view, according to the rules
of eating and drinking in the Islamic legal law.
To anchor this basic concept, we would like to say
that if a small amount of a prohibited substance X is
mixed with a dominant permissible substance Y till
substance X loses all its attributes such as taste,
color, and smell, substance X loses the qualifications
of being impure and prohibited by having being
dissolved in substance Y.
This conclusion is supported by a ruling by Imam Ibn
Taymmiah in his book Al-Fatawa (21/502), and by
the recommendations of the Ninth Medical Fiqh Seminar
of the Islamic Medical Science Organization, which met
in Ad-Dar Al-Bayda’ in Morocco in June 1997.
Moreover, The Islamic Food and Nutrition Council
of America adds:
In the food industry, alcohol is the second common
solvent after water. Some of the flavors like vanilla
cannot be made without alcohol. One cannot imagine
foods and drinks like ice cream, cakes and cookies,
soft drinks, etc. without the use of alcohol, to the
extent that this has become an unavoidable impurity in
the food systems. Muslim countries, which import food
products, accept foods containing small quantities of
alcohol.
We have established two levels of control points for
alcohol in foods and ingredients:
Less than 0.1 per cent in the food items.
Less than 0.5 per cent in food ingredients.
At the above levels, one can not detect the presence
of alcohol by taste, smell or sight.
These guidelines are for the food industry to make halal
certified products. However, where should one draw the
line is up to the individual Muslim consumer, based on
"the available knowledge and his or her own
commitment.
The above quotation is excerpted, with slight
modifications, from www.fiqhcouncil.org
Taken
from www.islamonline.net
http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/english/FatwaDisplay.asp?hFatwaID=71201
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