Malaysia hopes to create world halal standard.

“Malaysia’s halal certification is recognized worldwide so perhaps we can play an important role in creating a global standard,” Malaysia’s religious affairs minister Jamil Khir Baharom said in an interview on Thursday. “We need a halal certification that everyone can use easily.”

The halal industry is based on a belief that Muslims should eat food and use goods such as cosmetics that are ‘halalan toyibban’, which means permissible and wholesome.

But Muslim jurists do not always agree on what is halal. Islam prohibits the consumption of pork and prescribes how animals must be slaughtered, but there has been debate on the acceptability of non-alcoholic beer, collagen and vinegar.

Rules are interpreted and enforced more strictly in some countries. Sudanese authorities have hauled up women for wearing trousers and a Malaysian woman has been sentenced to a beating for drinking beer, practices which are acceptable in some Muslim countries.