The day started with my phone going ‘beep beep’ continuously. I had received several SMS messages about the Halal certificate of a well-known restaurant being revoked. One of these message read, " XXXXX’s Halal certification has been revoked. It was found that they used pork instead of chicken ham. Pls fwd this message to all muslims brothers and sisters.”
| “Nothing travels faster than light, with possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rules”.
~ Douglas Adams ~ |
False Alert!
Yes, the SMS messages were medium of rumour. The information that was being spread was false. And how do I know that? Well, a simple email to MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura), the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, was all it took to verify the truth. And, the time taken to compose and send this email was almost equivalent to mass forwarding the SMS to all Muslims in my contact list.
According to Mr. Mohd Ariff Salleh, Senior Executive of Halal Certification Strategic Unit, MUIS
"The Halal certificate expired on 31 Jan 2010 and the Halal certificates issued have to be returned upon expiry as in accordance with our terms & conditions. The email which has been circulating that their certificate has been withdrawn is not correct. The renewal application was submitted two days before expiry. In actual fact, the renewal should be submitted 2 months before expiry as the renewal notification was sent 2 months ago.
Nevertheless, the renewal application was approved on 24 Feb 2010."
The Ignored Repercussions
I definitely appreciate the good intentions of these information forwarders. They care about their community and they wish to do their part in preventing the Muslim consumers from being cheated by profit-minded business organizations. I certainly disapprove and stand against manipulative business organizations that exploit religious beliefs
But, the eagerness to do prevent harm should not blind our rationality. Upon receiving such a message, we should first think about its validity. I presume everyone who received the message would have thought, “Is this news true?” But, how many of us make an attempt to get an answer? How many of us think about the importance of knowing the truth?
In trying to help the Muslims consumers, we’ve forgotten about the Muslims workers in that organization. I think I need not emphasize the impact, of such messages, on the wages of these employees.
Some Gentle Reminders
To advise anyone on this issue is unnecessary. I am not going to say, “do not help spread rumours”, because that would actually be an insult. Instead let me remind you that helps a lot if you verify what you hear, stop the rumours and spread the truth. And, if you not time to do that, then I suggest you don’t sacrifice your time to spread the unverified information.
And for specially for my Muslims readers:
It is well known that verifying news is something of high importance according to Shari`ah
2 comments:
good one
Totally agree! :D
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