Is the vaccine haram? Doctors dispel myths among Muslims

Concerned about the low turnout in vaccination centres two ideologically differing organisations mdash the JamaateIslami and lesserknown Sufi Minhaj Interfaith and Welfare Foundation headed by PakistaniCanadian Dr Tahir ul Qadri mdash on Sunday hosted webinars to dispel myths about the Covid19 vaccine with doctors scientists Islamic scholars and the ulema clarifying common misconceptionsSpeakers Haji Syed Salman Chishty Ajmer Sharif and Dr Mumtaz NaiyerBesides the common fears like aftereffects WhatsApp forwards predicting death after two years of getting vaccinated and religious conviction that Godrsquos or the Gangarsquos chosen people will not be harmed there are two fears peculiar to MuslimsThe first is whether the vaccinersquos ingredients make the vaccine haram The fear got compounded after some ulema led by Mumbairsquos influential clerics Saeed Noorie of the Raza Academy and Moin Miya declared in December that the Chinese vaccine was haram because it was said to contain gelatin derived from pigs A decision on the two vaccines manufactured in India was then deferred till their ingredients were known When midday contacted him on Sunday Maulana Noorie said the two vaccines manufactured in India were halalBut most Islamic scholars who spoke at the webinars felt the Mumbai ulema were wrong The scholars asserted that the Quran specifically said that if medical experts prescribe a particular medicine as the only means of saving a human life then even if it had haram ingredients it must be takenProf Syed Aleem Ashraf Jaisi of Maulana Azad National Urdu University said the primacy given to saving a human life in Islam made it a religious duty for Muslims to take the vaccine because they will be saving othersrsquo lives tooThe second fear affecting Muslims follows the death of a few influential ulema during the second wave particularly that of Maulana Wali Rahmani 86 general secretary of the AllIndia Muslim Personal Law Board who had taken both dosesMany speakers felt the communityrsquos low literacy rate contributed to these fears though that doesnrsquot explain vaccine hesitancy on the AMU campus which saw a disproportionate number of deaths Privately some social workers told this reporter that an additional factor was the mistrust in the BJP regime and the conviction that it was lsquoout to eliminate Muslimsrsquo Hence the misconception that the vaccine will make the recipient infertile or cause cancerCome togetherGiven the communityrsquos trust in the ulema speakers suggested that all leading seminaries should jointly issue a call that vaccination was both safe and necessary Also imams of masjids should be educated on the issue so that they could exhort the community in their Friday sermons to get vaccinated Karnatakarsquos influential Mulana Sayed Tanveer Hashmi spoke in Bijapur about the benefits of vaccination during last Fridayrsquos sermonHaji Syed Salman Chishty whose family is the hereditary custodian of the Ajmer Sharif Dargah narrated how Ajmerrsquos Muslims got enthused after senior members of the Chishty family got vaccinated The Dargah has already held one vaccination camp If all dargahs were to hold vaccination camps he said the fears of worshippers will be assuagedIn the UK pointed out Dr Mumtaz Naiyer who researches viruses in the University of Cambridge masjids had opened vaccination centresOther speakers feared that the community would be left behind while the world got vaccinated as had happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan where polio vaccine workers have been shotldquoIf they refuse vaccination Indian Muslims will be the ones not only contracting Covid19 but also spreading itrdquo said Maulana Hashmi ldquoImagine the consequencesrdquoMaulana Dr Zishan Misbahi of Jamia Aarfiya Allahabad added ldquoThe world will get one more reason to mock our religion and our Shariat though it was the Prophet who had recommended lockdowns and social distancing during epidemics 1400 years agordquo