Abstract
Based on eighteen months working in and training with halal certification businesses in Milan, this chapter explores the valuation of craft foods in global marketplaces, focusing on how halal certifiers engage with local foodways and, through this process, revalue Muslim religious rulings, bodies, and communities. In the field of economics, halal is often thought of as comprising a small collection of universal fixed standards; however, I show that the implementation of halal certification in non-Muslim-majority countries is an open-ended process. I focus on one of the largest halal certifiers in Europe, Halal Italia, to highlight a tension at play. Halal Italia is at the center of Islamic institution building in Italy. At the same time, some members of the broader Islamic community question Halal Italia’s authority to certify materials as halal because the religious institution behind Halal Italia is made up of Sufi converts to Islam. The chapter will highlight that, far from being a universal standard, halal is created in situ and is never a finished process but an avenue to make and remake Islam. The aim of this chapter is to go beyond considering halal to be merely an economic intervention and beyond seeing it as part of a culture of foodways. The aim is to delve into moments in which the halal certification process generates new kinds of persons, communities, and worlds.