Research Platforms' Performance Reports GA21 2015-2017 | Page 10

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
Halal Ecosystem
The Halal Ecosystem (HE) cluster focuses its involvement
on three key elements (societal health, community welfare
and sustainable economic development). Each of these
is derived from the essential principles that define the
meaning and boundary of the word ‘Halal’.
Researchers in the HE cluster are involved in conducting
research in different multidisciplinary areas including Muslim
consumers’ Halal product choice behaviour, global trade of
Halal products, cross-cultural choice behaviour, identifying
harmful ingredients and elements in pharmaceutical
products, vaccines and food supplements, and DNA
identification in chicken and fish.
The second key element of the HE Cluster is community
welfare. Islam strongly emphasises distributional
economics and stewardship. Professor Pervaiz Ahmed
and Dr Mohammad Shaiban have been active in this area
of research with external research funding.
Associate Professor Yunus Ali
Research Cluster Members
Associate Professor Yunus Ali
(Cluster Leader)
Professor Sunil K Lal
Associate Professor Uma Devi Palanisamy
Dr Ghazala Khan
Dr Manish Gupta
One of the PhD student projects is researching the
development and validation of a performance assessment
system based on the Islamic concept of ‘falah’ (success),
to evaluate Islamic business organisations’ proactive
measures of redistribution of profit for societal welfare and
caring for the environment under the Makashid-al Sharia
(principles of Islamic law) on societal welfare.
Researchers of this cluster have also initiated research on
Waqf (Islamic charity that benefits humankind irrespective
of their religious affiliation) under the Halal Ecosystem
cluster. Some papers are in the process of publication.
Our researchers have also worked on Halal compliance in
vaccines. The objective of the research was to set up a
new molecular biology lab for halal vaccine testing. This
objective was achieved, and expertise and capabilities
to test vaccines for halal compliance were gained. Plans
to expand on this capability are in motion, towards being
able to test a variety of products (e.g. food, beverages,
cosmetics.) for Halal compliance using a wide variety of
well-standardised high-accuracy technologies.
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