The halal boom: Islamic finance, halal logistics, and market-driven desecularization

• In Event: 2218 - Public Religions in Comparative-Historical Perspective

Abstract

Since Marx and Weber, sociologists have insisted that religious authority over the economy disappears with modernization. However, the world is now experiencing a “halal boom”: the blossoming of economic sectors regulated by shariah. In some sectors, like finance and shipping, certified shariah-compliant products like Islamic bonds and halal container terminals are proliferating for the first time in modern history, supported by liberalizing markets, global supply chains, and risk-management imperatives. Desecularization is not transpiring despite economic modernization, but because of it. I argue that this “market-driven desecularization” is possible because an elective affinity exists between Islamic neotraditionalism and voluntary market regulation. Necessary conditions for voluntary market regulation include the presence of ethical anxieties about products and legitimate non-state authorities to issue labels of ethical certification. Islamic neotraditionalism offers these. Case studies of Islamic finance and halal logistics show how entrepreneurs have institutionalized the authority of shariah scholars and their fatwas to certify shariah-compliant products and offer consumers peace of mind. Surprisingly, some of these entrepreneurs have been non-Muslims. Moreover, the anxieties shariah-compliant products address may be old or completely new. Indeed, halal certification not only responds to demand from neotraditionalists, but itself shapes neotraditionalist piety, creating new avenues for virtuous action.

Author

• Ryan Calder, Johns Hopkins University