In Islam, it is forbidden for Muslims to consume anything that’s categorised as haram such as alcohol and pork although some have tried to fool others into believing that there is a way to turn something haram into halal just by reciting a prayer.
While this may not be the same case, netizens still showed concerns after these local influencers recently revealed that there is a place where everyone can go to try and drink a “halal version” of Soju. Watch:
@hypemalaysia These local influencers received backlash for promoting a restaurant’s “halal soju” drinks.
Yesterday (Thursday, 5th October), food vlogger group Jom Kita posted a video on their social media of them trying out the new Wagyou Grill restaurant in Bangi. As seen in the video, the content creators, who are Muslims, were served bottles of what appeared to be soju that were said to be halal as they claimed the restaurant is owned by a Malay Muslim.
According to the narrator, the soju drinks shown in the video were not the actual alcoholic soju but just simple fruit juice that supposedly replicates the original beverage. The influencers were then seen drinking the “halal version” of the alcoholic drink with shot glasses. The video quickly went viral and drew a lot of negative attention from netizens.
Many condemned the food vloggers for wanting to “experience the haram culture” by finding a halal version of an alcoholic drink. Some wondered why the drink would still be named soju if it wasn’t actually soju. Others showed concerns about how normalised recreating something that’s forbidden in Islam has become.
There were also those who pointed out that even if the drink itself is halal, drinking it from a shot glass to emulate the actual drinking culture is still forbidden in Islam. At the time of writing, neither Jom Kita nor the Wagyou Grill restaurant have responded to the backlash.
Perhaps the restaurant should consider renaming the drink to something else and prepare them in normal-size glasses in the future.
Source: Twitter
