18 HARAM-CONTENT BEVERAGE PRODUCTS IN MUSLIM MAJORITY
COUNTRIES: DEVELOPING A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Ahasanul Haque1*, Faruk Ahmed2 and SMH Kabir3
1,&3Department of Business Administration, International Islamic University Malaysia, Box No. 10, 50728 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2Faculty of E-commerce, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, China
*Correspondence e-mail: ahasanul@iium.edu.my
ABSTRACT
In this study, a conceptual framework is developed to provide an insightful linkage between Islamic beliefs (personal, family, social, and institutional beliefs) and purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products. Islam can aid in avoiding suspected haram-content beverage products for its power of haram-halal codes since alcoholism is prohibited in Quran. According to Usul-Al-Fiq, pork and other animal fat used in various food and beverage products are harams since eating pork is listed in haram codes in Quran.
A comprehensive content analysis was accomplished to develop the hypotheses on the basis of reading materials and discussions with several business professors and other academic sources. The study explored a significant role in the body of Islamic consumerism and in the realm of Islamic marketing practices. Muslim leaders could formulate and implement strategies to change the conventional organizational image into an Islamic organization image. This research is a prime effort to show how good Islamic values should be added to Muslim and non-Muslim organizations.
Keywords: Personal belief, family belief, social belief, institutional belief, attitude, intention, haram-content suspected beverage products
INTRODUCTION
Islam has a positive effect on a human being for its comprehensive guidelines for showing both worldly and heavenly peace in life. Conventional ethics could not perfectly shape harmless, peaceful human behavior at work and in life because of its concentration on materialistic or worldly views. Fear of Almighty Allah protects human beings from doing work harmful to themselves and others, whereas it is absent in conventional ethics because other religions permit alcoholism that influences people to violate every religious code for their worldly life. In another way, secular politics bounds alcoholic and non-alcoholic people with its worldly laws and regulations, and willingly or unwillingly slide them away from codes of religion.
19 There are few Muslims who practice Islamic values in their work and family life, and people in organizations are mostly practicing man-made ethical values that do not bring satisfaction to them. Clearly, there are still problems with some beverage products that Muslims eat is ambiguous to us about whether these fall in haram or (Makhru) dislike food lists (Rahman et al., 2021, Haque et al., 2018). Those food contents have been kept secret until now, such as beverage products of the companies of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Another problem is that Muslims cannot understand clearly whether these beverage food products are healthy or unhealthy (Ratih et al., 2022, Haque et al., 2018). It is suspicious that haram- content beverage products may be neither healthy nor halal. In suspicious cases of consuming products, Islam can firmly guide Muslims according to Quran and Sunnah.
Particularly, those both--who are devout young Muslims and who are not-- both are regularly buying and consuming haram-content beverage products. Being not confirmed, humans should not do anything as it is found in several Quranic verses. The Qur’an (2:168) advises us, "Ye People, eat of what is on earth, lawful and wholesome." In the time of the prophet, the choices of food were simply related to whether a food was halal or haram. However, in modern times we have many more choices. The Qur’an (20:81) also advises us to, "Eat of the good things We have provided for your sustenance but commit no excess therein." The Prophet (SW) himself was always known to eat fruits and vegetables grown in the region in which he lived and in season (Al-Akili, Medicine of the Prophet).
So, it has a magnitude to study the phenomenon from a perspective where researchers can explore insightful impressions regarding this kind of consumption of Muslims. In this, the study would leave information for Islamic business leaders to divert Muslims’ concentration from haram-content-suspected beverage products to halal-content beverage products, and also leave information that may influence conventional business stakeholders to disclose the beverage contents compliant or non-compliant with shariah (Asiyah and Hariri, 2021). From an Islamic perspective, measuring the Islamic value of Muslims towards consuming haram-content suspected beverage products could motivate other researchers to study from a national or multi-national perspective. Islamic value is the highest ethical value that is not man-made and can be the most effective for consumerism and consumers’ real satisfaction. Dissatisfaction is happening when Muslims think that we eat a thing, but do not know the contents of it. Finally, by following this framework, Islamic society and conventional society could think and find advanced concepts that are clearly beneficial for Muslim Ummah and non-Muslims of the world.
The objectives of the study are to find out the relationship between Islamic values and young Muslims’ attitudes and the relationship between Muslims’ attitudes and purchasing intention toward haram-content suspected beverage products and to explore the mediating variable on purchasing behavior of haram-content-suspected beverage products.
Research questions are: Is there any relationship of Islamic value with purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products? Is there any mediating role of Muslim attitude on the relationship between Islamic beliefs and purchase intention towards haram- content suspected beverage?
LITERATURE REVIEWS AND HYPOTHESES Purchase Intention
The halal concept (especially for foods) is truly from the farm to the table and requires nutritious items prepared from permissible ingredients in a clean and hygienic manner.
Muslim consumers are very similar to any other consumer segment, demanding healthy and quality products, which must also conform to Shariah requirements. A halal certificate can play an important role to assure consumers that the product has got the necessary conditions of a halal product (Hanzaee & Ramezani, 2011, Haque et al., 2015). The sensitive and selective determination of melamine in a wide range of food matrices, including several milk-based products is a research issue. The method involves an extraction with aqueous 1%
trichloroacetic acid before the injection of the 10-fold diluted extract into the liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI-MS/MS) system, using labeled melamine as the internal standard (Sancho Ibanez et al, 2009). Religious-ethnical requirements considering hygiene and product safety are mostly compatible with corresponding “elite” requirements. The importance of the halal product business is proved by the well-known international organization of quality and ethics of agricultural products and food standardization “Codex Alimentarius”, which belongs to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 1997, it dedicates part of its developments to Muslim and Jewish products mentioned above. Unfortunately, the specific quality and certification requirements of halal and kosher products are little known by the majority of European businessmen. (Ruzevicius, 2012).
Plant oils, and marine and animal fats are the main components of diet and they are economically crucial for many exporting countries. Triacylglycerols (TAG) are the main fat components in the diet. Food consumed by humans must be HALAL. Food products with a HALAL designation do not only relate to meat but also include canned, processed, and frozen foods, organic foods, bakery products, pastries, and beverages (Latiff, 2013, Haque et al., 2018). The diversity of their trade measures, their similarity to non-Muslim countries, and their future policy choices are the richness of international trade law across the Islamic world (Bhala & Keating, 2014). The biosensor could be used as a simple visual method for ethanol determination in fermented beverage samples that can be useful for the Muslim community for halal verification (Kuswandi et al, 2014).
Islamic Beliefs
This paper depicts a set of universal values, taken from the world's main religions that are a strong basis for creating healthy organizations. These values are argued to be essential to enable both economic and spiritual ideals to thrive and grow in modern organizations.
(Kriger & Hanson, 1999). The Islamic work ethic has a mediating role in controlling, conflict and ambiguity, where 397 employees from manufacturing and service organizations are surveyed and analyzed on basis of regression and it showed that Islamic value has a mediating role in reducing conflict and ambiguity in workplaces. But there is no highly significant role of Islamic values in the relationship with conflict and ambiguity (Yousuf, 1999). Islamic ethics and its implications for business is a study on Islamic ethics for western
21 managers. The study found that divergent application of ethics is practiced, and further study of Islamic ethics is necessary for the Muslim Ummahs’ development.
H1: Personal Islamic beliefs have a negative impact on attitude towards purchasing haram- content suspected beverage products.
H2: Family Islamic beliefs have a negative impact on attitude towards purchasing haram- content suspected beverage products.
H3: Social Islamic beliefs have a negative impact on attitudes towards purchasing haram- content suspected beverage products.
H4: Institutional Islamic beliefs have a negative impact on attitude towards purchasing haram-content suspected beverage products.
H5: There is a negative effect of young Muslims’ attitude on purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products.
H6: There is a mediating effect of young Muslims’ attitude on the relationship between personal Islamic belief and purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products.
H7: There is a mediating effect of young Muslims’ attitude on the relationship between family Islamic belief and purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products.
H8: There is a mediating effect of young Muslims’ attitude on the relationship between social Islamic belief and purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products.
H9: There is a mediating effect of young Muslims’ attitude on the relationship between institutional Islamic belief and purchase intention towards haram-content suspected beverage products.
Muslims’ Attitude
Halal logo may be a nonissue in some Muslim perceptions and has no impact on Muslim consumers’ attitudes towards halal food products (Omar, 2008; Putri et al., 2019). A greater number of Turks-Muslim than of Bulgarians-Christians (including those respondents who regularly use alcohol) are in favor of an official prohibition of alcohol in society, especially in moderate use on special occasions is inadmissible to them (Akabaliev, & Dimitrov, 1996).
The importance of halal products is now growing. It is now a new market force and brand identifier and is now moving into the mainstream market, affecting and changing perceptions on how business should be conducted, including from a marketing point of view. (Lada et al, 2009). The study was conducted to depict Malaysian Muslim attitudes, where it is confirmed that our respondents who are concerned about the “halal” logo are also concerned about the ingredients used (Abdul, Hashim, & Johari, 2009, Shafiq, et al., 2015). The drinking level, variety of alcoholic beverages consumed most, and drinking frequency of Whites, Blacks, “Coloreds” and Indians in South Africa are compared (Burgh, 1983).
By reviewing related Islamic and conventional literature, four levels of Islamic beliefs have been explored to verify the effects on young Muslims’ attitude and purchase intention towards Haram-Content Suspected Beverage Products (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework for this Study
RESEARCH METHODS
The hypotheses that have been developed on the basis of reading materials, discussing with several business professors are a bit fairly tentative. Qualitative study was conducted by using these sources. It is important but difficult to do such a type of academic research in business and science field. However, it is possible to make sense about that on basis of related literature and supportive theories to develop associative and causal set of hypotheses.
Wright (2006) argued for causal and associative hypotheses in psychology drawing different examples from eyewitness testimony research in psychology and showing the ground why both types of hypotheses can put forth. Kerlinger (1986) described it as "one of the most powerful tools yet devised for the study of complex areas of behavioral scientific concern.”
Hypothesis specifies which variables will be correlated with which factors and which factors are correlated. The hypothesis is based on a strong theoretical and/or empirical foundation.
Daniel (1989) held that factor analysis is" designed to examine the covariance structure of a set of variables and to provide an explanation of the relationships among those variables in terms of a smaller number of unobserved latent variables called factors". It was indicated that confirmatory factor analysis is advantageous over exploratory factor analysis as CFA allows the researcher to test numerous competing hypotheses regarding the factors underlying the data (Stapleton, 1997). This framework can be adapted in any Islamic perspective study in future, and 5-point Likert type rating scale would suitable to develop under the factors placed in the proposed conceptual framework to verify hypotheses.
DISCUSSIONS
Donald Lepore, a nutritionist and author of the book The Ultimate Healing System, has found in his allergy relief therapies that, "God did not permit foods that are antagonistic to man’s existence to be grown in the area of consumption." We can often avoid most of our
H1
H2
H3
H4
H5 Personal
beliefs
Family beliefs
Social Beliefs
Muslims’
Attitude
Purchase Intention of Haram-Content Suspected Beverage
Products
Institutional Beliefs
H6 H7 H8 H9
23 problems by simply eating foods that are grown nearby and in season. Antecedents of the framework would work under supporting theories, such as theory of planned behavior, theory of reason actions. Theory of planned behavior can be verified whether it is adaptable or not; if adaptable, it is significant to know how much effect of antecedents cause for a particular Islamic behavior towards beverage industry (Nurhasanah and Ardianti, 2021).
Islamic government organizations can take different initiatives to inform Muslims about haram contents of beverage products. Muslim and non-Muslim marketers can easily understand strategic marketing process from Islamic perspective because perspective knowledge is more complex in nature, where training is very much suitable for such learning.
The study explored a significant role in the body of Islamic consumerism and in the realm of Islamic marketing practices. There is a substantial suspicion towards some organizations which may sell haram-content beverage products around the world, where very few suspects are published in the form of news and research. A continuous research process on this issue could create pressure for politicians, social workers, businesses, and other stakeholders to make policies in the interest of protecting Muslims from consuming haram-content beverage products. Muslim leaders could formulate and implement strategies to change the conventional organization image into an Islamic organization image. This research is a prime effort to show how good Islamic values should be added to Muslim and non-Muslim organizations.
CONCLUSION
This endeavor is to show how Islamic and conventional values mainly affect Muslims’
attitudes and purchase intention toward suspiciously haram-contented beverage products. A few people who practice adding Islamic values at work and in family life are engaged in different organizations, where they are practicing man-made ethical values but most of them may behave at work and in family life Islamic way if they see an Islamic environment.
Islamic value is the highest ethical value that can bring satisfaction for both marketers and consumers. As a theoretical contribution, it would be added to the body of knowledge of literature regarding Islamizing Muslims organizations. In addition, as an economic contribution, this Islamic practice could certainly lead to a contribution to an Islamic economy.
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This study has one limitation at the present progress. The framework which has been developed under theoretical underpinning and it is not validated as like other proven conventional models unless testing the hypotheses and comparing the results. This is actually part of a research project which is ongoing in the data collection phase. Therefore, our future direction to be published with complete format.
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