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SINGAPORE: The Singapore Islamic Religious Council (MUIS) said on Sunday (December 13) that it “maintains the position that a COVID-19 vaccine is allowed for Muslim use.”
“We advise and encourage Muslims to get vaccinated once it is available and when the vaccine has been medically licensed as safe and effective, as this is a basic need to protect lives in the context of a global pandemic,” MUIS said .
The council made its religious position on the vaccine known in a press release.
He said the goals of introducing a COVID-19 vaccine and the processes involved in vaccine production are “to a large extent aligned with established Islamic principles and values.”
Islamic jurisprudence attaches great importance to the sanctity and safety of human life and the protection of livelihoods, he said.
Therefore, efforts to protect human life from any form of danger and harm, such as the development of vaccines, are highly encouraged in Islam, he added.
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MUIS said that the religious vision of the COVID-19 vaccine “must take a more holistic stance that transcends the narrow issue of halality or the permissibility of its ingredients.”
He cited three aspects of a COVID-19 vaccine that have been considered.
“CRITICAL NEED” THAT DOES NOT CAUSE HARM
First, he viewed the role of the vaccine as a “critical need” to save lives and ensure that societies can function.
“Therefore, a vaccine is an important means of defending the principles of the sanctity of human life and avoiding harm, as it protects society from the harmful effects of the COVID-19 virus,” MUIS said.
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Second, “any COVID-19 vaccine must have no known adverse medical effects and it has been scientifically established that it is not expected to cause harm to those who take the vaccine,” MUIS said.
He added that this was an important consideration in line with the harm avoidance principle of Islamic jurisprudence.
“HALAL” VACCINES
Third, MUIS also considered the permissibility of ingredients used in vaccines.
He said that there are situations that allow the use of impure or prohibited substances for treatment “as is evident in some prophetic traditions.”
“In addition to this, impure substances or prohibited elements used in the previous processes would have gone through multiple layers of chemical processes, such as filtration, which would make them undetectable or insignificant in the final product,” MUIS said.
The council cited the drug heparin, which uses pig enzymes, and the rotavirus vaccine that uses trypsin, another enzyme.
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“In Muslim jurisprudence, these processes are similar to istihala, where the original substance changes its form and nature and no longer becomes prohibited,” MUIS said.
“In such situations, the end product (drug or vaccine) is considered permissible for Muslim use.”
The vaccines can also be fully synthetic and contain no animal components or cells, as in messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines developed for COVID-19, he said.
MUIS added that it was “inappropriate” to apply the same food consumption rules to vaccines, as the ways in which they interact with the body may differ.
In addition, “drugs and vaccines are often much more limited and take much longer to discover, manufacture and diffuse, due to the complex and rigorous processes involved in researching and producing them for safe use.”
“Consequently, the process for determining whether a vaccine is halal on the basis that all of its ingredients are halal, based on criteria applied only to food consumption, is inadequate and can be misleading,” the council said.
“New methods of evaluating therapies and vaccines should be required where important distinctions and differences are carefully considered and taken into account.”
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The COVID-19 vaccines currently in development or in trials do not diverge from these considerations, MUIS said.
“As such, we hold the position that a COVID-19 vaccine is allowed for Muslim use,” he said.
“The Fatwa Committee will review and assess the suitability of vaccines for Muslim use if they fundamentally diverge from the above principles.”
In a Facebook post on Sunday, the minister in charge of Muslim Affairs, Masagos Zulkifli, said he appreciated MUIS’s religious guidance on the permissibility of COVID-19 vaccines.
“I strongly recommend that Muslims get vaccinated once the vaccines are available in Singapore,” Masagos said.
He added: “I am grateful to our religious leaders who are highly informed, progressive, enlightened and attuned to the concerns of our Malay / Muslim community in the context of the global pandemic.
“This is possible thanks to the strong partnership our asatizah and religious leadership have with medical professionals,” as well as with the Authority of the Ministry of Health and Health Sciences, he said.
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