Events

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Kenneth Dean, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

This presentation will examine how colonial regulation attempted to change the process of halal or lawful animal slaughter during the early twentieth century. Debates on religious issues in the colonies had high stakes since they were considered to be the last bastion of autonomy out of the reach of colonial authorities. In theory, colonial subjects had the right to be left alone in the private sphere which was the realm of religious life however vaguely defined, and they often expected to be left alone. However, the realm of religious life continually challenged the public/private dichotomy since religious practice often took place in public places. In the matter of animal slaughter, the boundary between public and private is even blurrier, and colonial policing significantly more intense. While Islamic law held sway over family affairs in the colony, it was certainly not given priority over municipal law in the matter of animal slaughter. Yet, animal slaughter was not formally legislated in the colony beyond general rulings about hygiene of abattoirs and slaughterhouses. Due to this gap in legislation, Muslim subjects could still potentially assert their own religious laws. Nonetheless, debates surrounding the issue of animal slaughter demonstrated that even when there was no actual colonial legislation, state law was still capable of governing religious life. This paper examines the colonial regulation of animal slaughter in Malaya and Singapore during the early twentieth century. With the introduction of electrical stunning and frozen meat to the colonies, the discourse on animal slaughter focused increasingly on animal welfare, scientific technology and public hygiene.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Nurfadzilah Yahaya is a legal historian, and a Research Fellow at Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. She is the Editor of the World Legal History Blog which is part of H-Law, a mailing list for legal scholars. She is also the Regional Editor for SHARIAsource for Southeast Asia, a go-to site on Islamic law. Before coming to ARI, she held the Mark Steinberg Weil Early Career Fellowship in Islamic Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her PhD in History from Princeton University in November 2012. She is currently preparing her book manuscript on mobile Muslim merchants in the Indian Ocean which is based on her doctoral dissertation which won a Book Prize from the Arab Association of Singapore. The book, tentatively titled Fluid Jurisdictions, explores how members of the Arab diaspora utilized Islamic law in British and Dutch colonial courts of Southeast Asia. She has published journal articles in Law and History Review, Indonesia and the Malay World andThe Muslim World.

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