It's haram to sell low quality, spoilt food: Penang Mufti

SHAH ALAM - Penang Mufti Datuk Seri Dr Wan Salim Wan Mohd Noor reminds traders that it is haram to sell poor quality food including burnt and spoiled food.

He said this following viral posts on social media since the first day of fasting month last Thursday, where many claimed that the food they bought in some Ramadan Bazaar was burnt, spoiled and not worth the selling price.

Among them were foul-smelling chicken rice, roti john and burnt murtabak as well as air-filled karipap that received various reactions from netizens.

"Traders who sell such food are not only involved in fraudulent sales, but they also had consume wrongfully obtained money from these people.

"There is a hadith which said anyone who cheats on their sales goods is not among us.

"In addition, Ramadan is a golden opportunity for traders to seek reward from Allah SWT," he said in a statement on Monday.

Wan Salim said Islam is a religion of mercy that carries a mission of love and calls for brotherhood among Muslims and fellow human beings.

"So I call on traders to be considerate of buyers and not to take advantage of the people's needs especially in terms of food for iftar," he said.

In fact, he said, in a hadith narrated by Bukhari, the Prophet SAW said which means 'Allah SWT have mercy on one who is lenient when he buys and sells'.

"Such behavior is also included in the 'ihsan' or excellence definition which is one of the pillars of Negara Madani that is the latest slogan introduced by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim," he said.

Meanwhile, consumers expressed their disappointment over the quality of food they bought at Ramadan Bazaar which was expensive and not worth the price.

They had shared their feelings on social media by uploading photos of the burnt, raw and stale food.

A Facebook account owner known as Norzainiza Zaini said the lepat ubi she bought at Ramadan Bazaar were raw and not cooked properly.

"Imagine if someone only has RM2 and that's the food they ate for iftar today.

"With hope that the three pieces (lepat) can be shared with their children or to fill their stomach after a busy day in searching for sustenance, but they suddenly got a raw kuih to break fast," she said.

Another user known as Siti Aishah also shared her experience in buying fried tilapia fish that looks yummy from the outside but was actually fried the day before it was sold.

"Yesterday, I bought white rice, fried tilapia fish and spinach. The trader gave me huge serving of spinach but the fish was very sticky when I ate it and it was not crispy at all.

"I didn't notice it when I bought it. Only when I break my fast that I knew that the fish was probably fried the day before. As a die-hard fish eaters, we can tell the difference when a fish was just fried, or fried in the morning or the day before," she said.

As for Facebook user Daku Hafizi, he said he had spent RM5 to eat fried Kuey Teow that was burnt.

"When I open the food plastic, it was very greasy and when I ate it, there was a rancid burnt taste. The RM5 I spent was wasted. Even the RM1 chicken karipap tasted sour and spoiled," he said.

In the meantime, Facebook account named Siti Rizabaizura did not expect that she would be 'tricked' with burnt roti john that she bought after seeing several posts about it on social media before.

"For the four days of Ramadan, I always see people uploading about burnt roti john on Facebook and I got it too today. For trader, don't wrap it immediately after you see it was burnt. Is it a trend now to sell burnt roti john," she said.

Another Facebook user Fantagyro Myzzxorynona shared the same story when the bengkang kuih he bought was also burnt.

"Is this year the burnt year. Yesterday, I saw a post about viral burnt murtabak and today I bought burnt bengkang," he wrote.