Excellent satire !!

Hello Miss Tazeen,

I think, the halal browser is an activity in futility for if one has takhwa does one actually need a Halal browser and if we did see something obnoxious on the Net we showed lower the gaze and guard our modesty (chap 21 quran) and well that should do, but just four the heck of it, one can make a halal browser if it can help search restaurants that serve halal food just like zabiha.com here in US

@DMA: Stay cool, it was just light hearted sarcasm

[...] Koogle a Kosher browser – no, I kid you not! The Halal browser drew some comments from Karachi blogger Tazeen Javed about its seductive features for the [...]

What a note this blog begins with: “The Jews have beaten the more pious Muslims to it again.”

Why so much hatred towards another religion and will this stop??? I do not understand! The core practices and beliefs of Islam are borrowed from the Jews and still hatred preached!

Good Job at the article!

I even liked your description in the end. ‘No one has asked you leave Karachi’ and worked as a ‘Fruit Vendor’

Simply love it!

As a business student I would like to say it’s a great idea that would cater those people who are very much religious conscious.

There was a space to come up with different ideas like this; meanwhile Internet is also used in our Islamic institutions that would be a good market for Koogle..

SimplY marketers are MINDBLOWING!!

I second to Mr Sabih’s comment, this blog post lost is objectivity way before its taste.

On a lighter note , hope to see better one’s next time.

A good one as “dede’ has commented.
Now some qualifiers:
The Halal browser cannot be evoked by Ladies unless they are in Hijab and men without proper Islamic Attire. No T shirts and Shorts. And unless you invoke the name of the God or the Guru, (I hear that the Sikhs are looking for one too) you can’t open the browser.
The Halal browser will only accept ads from Halal sellers of Halal food. This good news particularly for the residents of Canadian Mississauga. Their search for Halal Milk and Halal shaving erasers will be over.
The halal browser will have one section devoted to taliban news.
One section each for our CJ, President and of course Nawaz Sharif. They will now provide columnized entertainment. our PM. Oh he doesn’t count. He’s carbon tax. And let’s not forget our very own Imran Khan. The browser will have link WWW. Complaints. com hyperlinked to our supercap.
More Pen to you Ms. Tazeeen

Lol, Tazeen, atleast they are taking you seriously.

Hahaha!!!
Nice one. That’s such a fine business idea
Plus, let’s see how many version we’ll have to launch. The wahabi version, the deobandi version, the brailvi version and the shi’ite version. Lolz! Now that’s gonna add a fine spice of diversity to it.

People will never understand that censoring or restricting on Haram or Hilal content is useless.

Haram & Hilal are two sides of one coin so how can you drop one of them and carry other side. For whole life, you try to differentiate and choose betweem Haram & Hilal which is not possible.

People think that being a Muslim, Hindu, Christian Or Jan and following their respective path properly is religiousness. But they deceive them self by trying to get social respect.
Religiousness comes from inside oneself – from having faith and acting in a moral way. I think this shows religiosity better than outward appearances and actions.

Anyway, We are talking about Koogle or Hilal browser. This will not make any progress in religiousness but they will surely make their way of income for them self by deceiving in the name of HARAM, HILAL and religiousness.

A halal browser!!!! This is not a revolution but indeed a naive thinking. All religions teach that humans have the mind to decide between right and wrong. We need to stop unifying everything to Islam but instead change it in a manner that people with their own free will want to follow their religion. All countries in the world are facing similar issues on the web but none have come up with this conclusion.. Please open your minds instead of acting foolishly! Kookle.. I just cant get over it lolzz…

“Halal online” is good piece of satire.
Kosher search engine ‘koogal’ vs. the ‘Sharia compliant Halal browser’—–there you go.
Halal-browser is already available, but now there is a need of a better version.
Actually, this is in the best interest of the business community to modify and upgrade their presentations for attracting more satisfied customers.
On the other hand, the pious people try to keep practicing what is religiously right.
Psychology of the consumers is the top priority and consideration by the interested commercial community. They manage, however, to have “favourable fatwa” for marketing the products.
Thus, a massive diversion of the mind-set is name of the game.
The mockery of the religious practice is not funny as the word ‘Halal’ has been over-exaggerated. This, of course, is discussed everywhere to such a point that some authors always get a golden chance to find a topic to write up a few lines to address the issue satirically.
The business-community is out there to take advantage of the ‘weakness’ or the simplicity prevailing among the religious groups.
It is just our ‘alive conscience’ which guide us to a true path.
The Muslim community usually follows the commercially attractive items under the decal or banner of halal.
Good news is that this opens doors and creates opportunity for many in the commercial sector.

In remembrance of our recently Halal pop khalifa the (late) Meekaal Jackson, let me dedicate this song as his contribution to a trillion dollar market that you’re talking about here.
The song is “Halal the World” (read in Urdu–Dunya Halal Karo) – For you and for me and for the entire Human Race.

Ameen–Sum Ameen
BTW, I really enjoyed reading your post.

To add to my earlier comment, fact of the matter is that, bringing up a religious doctrine for the amusement of a people to vent frustrations against what is going on in our societies is outrageous. If there are any direct examples present in this article of enjoining of good then please point it out!

1. There will be several version of Halal browser, each for every sect..

2. The Halal browser will cease during prayers times

3. The Halal browser will only work if the user’s look is complaint with shariah, i.e. if male, should have beard, if female, should be covered, This will be detected by intelligent image recognition algorithms.

I dont have to repeat that has already been said about sarcasm.

I wonder why the so called religious people want a “halal” version of the browser or search engine??? Cant they simply skip those pages. I am sure today’s generation knows which pages are “halal” and which are not.

Excellent article!!If we truely will to develop a Halal browser we can. Ulama of all School Of Thoughts agree upon many HARAAM things, so there wudn’t be much disagreement. And if there is, then make two Halal Browsers, no problem:)

by day way Tazeen… The reward is fantastic:

The reward for clicking along the righteous path – Ovais Qadri naats in the background.

gr8 idea.Needs to be materialized by our IT companies.

Good satire! and an impressive one.

Tez,

Down with moral policing indeed!

-Zoobee

Good stuff. We need it.

Well written and thought provoking article. There are many sites and organizations for whom it is a big income generating business. ICNA and ISNA are two of those here in Canada. These two issue certficates to meet and poultry processors for financial reward and these businesses label their products ” Halal” and mark up the price. All of them are taking advatage of unsuspecting , ignorant Muslims.

Islamization of the web through designing a halal browser is another novel concept to ridicule the “righteous” and “pious” surfers. A good piece of satire.

Nice post….Bitter Yet
procrusteanation Of each and everything is going to happen..
Islamic banking is the new thread….In Karachi,Various Madressas are on a verbal War for declaring it Halal and Haram….
Hundreds of pages are written in cross argumentations…
One group(The Benefeciaries of that Convert) is advocating it….Other is against it…

I was at one time doing research in humane killing of animals.
No matter which way you kill them, just look into their sad eyes
you will give up eating meat, halal or haram.

I don’t get it, why do we need a Halal browser to keep us at bay from Haram things. As Muslims, we should have the power to resist temptation and illicit material over the internet. We have the force within us to keep evil at bay… we don’t need a browser to keep us away from it all..

Think about it. It’s like saying I will only pray Zohar on Friday because all my co-workers go, the other days well nobody goes, should I don’t go also… its crazy

Ha! Clever indeed! Very well done…. I would add one enhancement for Ms Javed’s considersation:

The browser should pass a jolt of electricity at the user who commits blasphemy (hudood ordinance aware browser). Or maybe, that is the job of “Halaal Windows” OS??

Super Satire. I just fell of my chair laughing.

Hello All:

And there is a Halal Street, a better version of Wall Street. Also a a Halal Potter, a better version of Harry Potter. Finally, a Halal Airlines, a better version of PIA.

Soon, the whole world will be halal.

Bindu Rama Rao

I was talking about halal/haram matters with a prominent imam of a prominent islamic center here in America. He remarked “what are you talking about”? further saying “do you know that the carpet you are praying on in this masjid, enjoying the air conditioning/heating in this masjid, food you are eating in this masjid specially in Ramdhan etc. is either haram or doubtful.”

What the imam wanted to point out was that in his opinion, one can not escape haram while living in America. In my opinion even while living in islamic countries, one can hardly avoid haram. I believe the eeman of muslims is getting weaker and weaker day by day. May Almighty Allah guide us.

Vertical search engines and web filters are nothing new, although their use by orthodox Jews appears to be quite creative.

As the world moves from broadcast to narrowcast, we are likely to see a lot more customized content for even narrow groups, religious or otherwise, that satisfies their own unique needs and tastes.

I think comparing 1.5 billion global and divesrse Muslims with a small number of Jews defies all logic, to say the least. There are far too many nationalities, elasticities, denominations, thought patterns and cultures in the vast world of Islam than the fairly small world of Judaism.

Halal market, on the other hand, is real and large, and it attracts investors and businesses based simply upon the opportunity for significant returns.

I say this with experience of extensive travels and many visits to Israel, Palestine and many Muslim nations in Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Who would define halaal?

Actually it isnt such a new concept. Maybe some of you have worked in Saudi Arabia. There is strict web filtering here using a proxy server and many URL’s are blocked.

I don’t see the need to have another thing that divides in the name of religion!

As the article was meant was satire and sarcasm which, sorry to say is missing from our ‘conservative society’. I would like to build on some of the comments which propose a Halaal version of YouTube.

It should contain talkshows and lecture of only those maulanas/commentators who propose the end to the world, the great Jewish-Hindu-Christian conspiracies against Islam, s seperate section for just halaal/haraam. We recently held a birthday party for our 2 year old son and had to hear lectures from the Halaal types of how we are practising haraam rituals.

The list just goes on but it will sure be a hit.

SALMAN RAZA

Tazeen,
By grace of the Lord, I was saved from corrupting influence of this article, as my Halaal browser classified it as Haraam at the opening phrase “Jews have beaten .. Muslims…. Thank God.

Hahahahahaaa….hilarious….I see Addisson, Swift and Pope coming back to life….Good piece (feeling of an Indian Muslim)

In UK some muslim channels have started HALAL DATING.. some shopkeepers buy meat from white people and sell it at a premium saying it is halal.. muslims are obsessed with religion and some crooks exploit them.. but then for many muslims concept of halal ends with the meat shop.. there is nothing halal in their daily lives.. they can stoop to any low level when money is concerned.. to get few extra pounds they lie right and left..

I think the idea of halal should apply to life insurance policies, other insurance policies, saving accounts, car loans, etc.
We already have halal mortgage, but it is financed by banks,which deals in interest, so much so they use the same annuity table. But Muslim consumers think it is not their responsiblity to know how it was financed and that they have done their part. They pay an amount based on the rental value, which is actually equal to the monthly payment amount paid on traditional mortgages. Similary, some Muslims try to lease cars to avoid interest payments, but the cars are financed through banks. I think the concept of halal should be used more comprehensively.

It should not end at internet. As a matter of principle, it should also conver the entire media and entertainment like TV programs, news, documentary, radio and cinema. As an example halal TV and cinema should only show women with hijab.

How about burqabook, now that would be interesting

Firstly, satire or not, I find that this article has given me several ideas on businesses which can in fact, provide substantial benefits for the muslim, and heck, even the non muslim society.

Good article. Well written, interesting, and through provoking ideas. My comments on the article and some other comments made by readers:

1. To invest in any venture, be it google,koogle, what not… needs finances. Secondly, it needs to be sustainable i.e. generate enough funds by itself to survive and not require investments from other sources (Mind you, if it did, then the content and policy would be persuaded towards the ideology of the (max) fund providers. Thus, this venture needs to grow in itself.

2. It is unfair to generalize…”all” halal business is for profiteering. The “Muslim” market, in my opinion is largely still untapped and many have realized this. It is a tremendous ‘business’ oppoortunity, and in order to properly root out and redirect organizations selling halal goods / services is by challenging them, and providng sincere value and ideal (ofcourse,I never said its easy – but thats whats beautiful about the right path)

3. I find very interesting the differentiating thoughts on a Halal browser, or a Halal search engine. A browser will link to the content on net, but a engine will in fact become a centralized storage of Islamic content. I feel we need both. In fact, regaring the browser, perhaps the firefox idea of would suffice, maybe, maybe not. There is an ‘Adult’ safety on current browers in the world today. I would initially suggest first establishing a search engine or portal, such as Islam.com, which in my opinion, since its inception 2000, perhaps has not really moved as much as it could have. Google started later.

3. The core and self-destructive challenge would be who’s ideals to listen to, and on who’s rules to abide with. This is why I suggest this be an independant organization and establish itself as self sufficient as possible. (How to get there? Oh boy, tell me when you find out) It should try to be autonomous, and honestly, as perhaps the Islamic Finance Industry which is at least on its way to maturing to a certain degree perhaps we can gain guidance from there.

Perhaps we need to really look past the satirical theology of the author and actually look at what is really possible, including the challenges (the author has brilliantly given many examples), and instead of simply talking about it, actively decide what can be possibly done.

I know I will. Anyways, I think I can go on for a while, but will stop here for now…

Thank you Tazeen. It was a very interesting read and tremendous food for thought.

Wish all your readers the best

Naveed

Is our faith so weak that if see these so called” Haram” things, our faith will weaken? There are so many wrong things going on around us, so should we closed our eyes everytime we see something. Muslims need to wake up and get of this utopia that we have created. Yes go ahead and practice ur religion but stop creating an issue about everything.

Actually, this idea not a new one. CHINA has been very active on what the young generation surfs on the net, for a very long time. They have introduce the “Green Dam” filter to block the dirty websites, and even vulgar language to be blocked from all the computers sold in China from this year onward, but there are some delays, and so far, only Acer and another computer maker have shipped new computer with clean filtering technology, but Chinese officials has said that they will certainly make sure their public specially youth does not access mentally contaminated dirty websites, etc. online. Its a shame our Muslim countries are doing nothing about what is accessed online, specially by young and impressionable minds. We can learn alot from Non-Muslims, when it comes to avoiding dirty websites.

Halal browsing is a personal responsibility. Lets not dumb down people who are already dumber than a door knob… Practically its impossible. And wow, “Kroogle” – how original!

Good thought provoking article. Any software developer can have que from this write up who can have requirements for developing a Halal Browser. There is badly a need of Halal browser in absence of world wide absence of will of our Governments to control the illicit use of web. Hope Pakistan too will be benefited by it.

Hamid Nilnagi
Srinagar

Hats off to you !
one thought for your article, ‘ A knife is not only a weapon, it is also used as surgical instrument to save lives. ‘

Lets have Sunni Halal, Shia Halal, Wahabi Halal, Deoband Halal, Barelavi Halal, India Halal, Pak Halal and so on…..

I think it is good that we don’t have a “Halaal Google.” Because then people will be talking about “censorship” and different sects will try to have their own, and it will be a mess.
What Muslims need is to be innovative in thinking, rather than copy or “Islamizing” everything that now originates from “the West.” The government of Pakistan has the powers and access to block the porn sites. Muslims have studied Greek and Romans and took what was right and in accordance with Islam, added and edited to the things that were “theories” and eradicated and refuted intellectually that were against the sciences revealed by the Holy Quran.
Muslims need to educated themselves and thats all.
Be educated, innovative and we absolutely should stop this mentality of copy pasting!!!
Halaal Tube after You Tube! Halaal Google now! what is next? Halaal Twitter, Halaal Facebook, wordpress, blogger, Windows!!!
I mean common!

All our Muslim folks should use their natural instinct before blindly accepting every thing halal as lot of people are running a business in the name of Halal, in fact they just label any thing halal to sell their products with no proof of being halal, plus they scare you from buying lots of products which dont have anything religiously objectionable.One should do extra research on his part before taking any thing for being granted as Halal.

Ford motors should think about launching a Kosher car.

And this new browser should also identify women who are surfing without a related male sitting next to them and block all internet activity…. well written piece lol

Scientific Temperment should be encouraged in Islamic countries , that would lead to more progress. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Economics should be thought in all Madrasas. Syllabus in Madrasas should be approved by a secular board.

Although hummer in the article is appreciable, Koogle is a reality that has not been criticized nor received any publicity in the media at large. I wonder if something of the same really comes into effect as per the article, then also wonder what response would it receive around the world. It is not hard to imagine. When we ran out of controversial topics, we tend to create one. No wonder there is a war between the liberals and a hard liners.

Completely endorse Mrityunjay Tripathi’s comment July 5, 2009 3.20PM. Keep up the good work Ms. Javed. Pl include other religions in the follow up to Halal on line

Nice effort, if we are unable to create the new trends then we copy the others and follow the excellent trends of west.

Saeed,
Sanaa, Yemn

Since when has sarcasm and satire become a good thing on religiuos matters? Whats next?

Wow this was a kinda critic and humour and u ppl thinking Tanzeen is serious and encouraging such a product… come on, take it easy guys!! This is political humor .. hun, isn’t it?

why some one else should decide whether a thing or an action is halal or haram. i think people are matured enough to make their own decisions.
by branding something or some action as halal some one is creating a bias,(like a cpmpany advertised its toothpaste as vegetarian. immediately you start thinking whether all other toothpastes are non vegetarian) thereby not letting you take a decision which your heart feels is right.

Wonder about the curiousity of human mind to sort thtough the trash.

Excellent article and some beautiful blogs. In my opinion we Muslims have gotten in the habit of taking things easy and do not want to be bothered by the details.

Tazeen, you have opened my eyes. After such a brilliant move of halal browser, I can see, the next step would be halal computer and then halal programming. Can you please go a step ahead and help me how to learn “halal programming” before it becomes industry standard and I loose my job?

LMAO…and lol @ the comments. You people are too much!

There is already an Operating System which is halal. It has in built filter which will filter out most of the offending websites.
Its called Sabily and its a derivative of Ubuntu. It uses DansGuardian open source software for filtering which is also used in Ubuntu Christian Edition and other safe operating systems

Since Sabily is basically Linux you can still do things which a linux box is supposed to do – run servers, websites, etc

Check it out

How about “Veilbook” and “Qiratwitter” for an added dose of piety?

The halal browser is already up and running — in the madrassahs. No computer required. No brain, either.

Koogle, schmoogle….

Excellent article. One must understand that Halal is big business and one must also understand that there are certain vested interests that are twisting rules to turn unhalal things into halal; one must be careful of such people.

Well this is satire but Halal is big business in Europe. People sell Halal toot paste, Halal toothbrush, Halal soap and perfume and houses and insurance. This is extreme profiteering on the pretext of being Halal.

It’s a good concept, but i hope whoever makes it, he or she keeps Islam in mind not the profit out of it.

To those who were able to appreciate Tazeen’s satire, and are now (rather smugly) commenting on the inability of some others to appreciate the humour, you’ve got to see it happening to truly feel its pervasive power. And then it stops being funny. She’s just being tongue-in-cheek, but there are others out there who’ve already stolen the march on her and done what she only (half) jokingly recommends. But this, too, shall come to pass, my friends, because we’ll be sitting on our nethers scoring points on who ”got” the joke and who didn’t.

Half the people who read your articles miss the point, which is sad but not something you wouldn’t expect.

why are people so afraid? have we lost all self confidence?

Sorry to see this kind of paranoia. This halal business is only benefiting tradesmen selling poor quality expensive goods behind religious banners. Is this all about religion?

I don’t think many people who have left comments understand that the author is making fun of the moral police and not suggesting an actual halal browser!

Tazeen, you are very right .. Moral policing is a pain in society.

Writing a software programme for a search engine or a browser is a great headache. Just invoking heavenly names in the beginning and thanking them in the end is more than enough to morph everything and anything kosher or halal.

Let’s not forget halal cricket, halal traveling, halal reading, halaal photography etc.

Wonder why can’t we just simply enjoy things as they are and not complicate life.

Good article! However, some people cannot even understand the satire!!

Good article. Food for thought. Interesting aspect of this article is that Muslims all over the world do not have any authentic website where they can surf for halal/haram information.

Tazeen, I am a regular on your blog. The comments here show that majority is yet to grasp the concepts of sarcasm and satire.

Doesn’t say much about the intelligence of those who read this and think that this was written to encourage the creation of such a browser or search engine.

Funny that how many commentators missed the satire in the article and naively assumed that she is proposing Halal Google.

Let us wait till we know how and when the programme works out to the entire satisfaction of the real pious ones. This problem has to be solved genuinely and at the earliest.

I think people need to evolve beyond the definitions. I think we need to enter the 21st century.

Good idea! But the problem still is that what is actually ‘halal’ and what is not. Suppose one maulana says religious jokes are unislamic and the other one says they are okay. What would the browser do?!

Nice blog. Yes we need a Halal search engine or something that can keep us from the sins which are currently destroying our whole nation, especially internet users. We should do something like China and Iran to save people specially young ones from this.

Good fun stuff. But I hope the satire carries on to the contributions in the comments section, because if not then we’re all in trouble.

There is no need to have new browser. Just write a plugin for firefox or modify hosts file in windows. The idea is to provide a hosts file which will have the most updated list of websites containing blocked content.

Obivously there is Adblocker and other plugins muslims should have taken advantage of and as far as i know, many already do use them with a routine regularity.

i support this gesture

makes sense.

I like the pun in case it is intended !

Well, for all you know the maulanas are already at it and you will see halal version of Google / Koogle and it better be called Hoogle.

Cheers,

Jayant Arora

it was not a good one . i have tried to open but it did not work like google . i m nt satisfied . i thought that u should try to collapse it.

Good for Muslims as well because both the religions are most near to each other.

Very intelligenrly composed satirical piece of genuinely liberal mind.

Tazeen,

Great to see some Mancunians writing thought-provoking articles.

I would just like to bring to your attention a Halal version of Youtube called ‘Halaltube’ which might not be gigantic as You tube but has a collection of great talks+lectures by leading Islamic Scholars.

Kind Regards

Cidat

Not a great piece of writing but criticism is justified. You need to add one more thing which would be ‘Who would decide which is halal & what is not?’

we would need several versions of Browser satisfying the needs of diffence of opinions of, which Tanzeen callss, “maulanas”.

good one.