Permissibility in using HEK293 Cells for Biomedical Research

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

As-salamu alaykum wa-rahmatullahi wa-barakatuh.

Brother in Islam,

It is commendable that you wish to confirm the permissibility of the investment before committing to it.

In principle, a partnership is a contract in which each partner is an owner of a share of the business and its assets, and each partner's profit is a return on the whole business. Pork is not considered a valid commodity according to the Shariah for a Muslim. The same applies to carrion and to every other food that is unlawful for a Muslim to consume, such as the meat of an animal not slaughtered in the prescribed manner. None of these count as wealth in the eyes of the Shariah. They have no legal value for a Muslim, so a Muslim may not own them, sell them, or take a price for them, and he may not appoint another person to sell them on his behalf. A price taken for what is not wealth is not a lawful price, and it does not become lawful by passing through a partner or a manager. When a Muslim becomes a partner in a restaurant that sells pork, he becomes, in proportion to his share, an owner of the pork that is purchased, a seller of the pork that is sold, and a recipient of its price. The fact that a non-Muslim partner handles the pork does not change this, because in a partnership every partner acts as an agent for the others, and the operating partner is selling on your behalf as much as on his own.

Accordingly, it is not permissible for you to enter this partnership as long as non-halal is on the menu, whether your share is large or small, whether you are active or passive, and whether the customers are Muslim or not. Your personal distance from those items does not remove your ownership of it, and your minority interest only reduces the amount, not the ruling.

As for the suggestion of ring fencing your share so that you receive only the income attributable to permissible products, this does not solve the problem. Profit in a partnership is a share of the profit of the business, not of a chosen line of products, and even if the accounting were separated, you would still be a part owner of the inventory and of the business that sells it.

The schools of law agree that a Muslim may not trade in pork and may not partner in its sale. The differences among contemporary scholars concern only the tolerances applied to listed companies with incidental impermissible income, and those tolerances are a concession for a situation of no control, not a licence for a partner who is setting up the business.

The clean path is to make your entry into the partnership conditional on pork and other non-halal being removed from the menu, which many restaurants serving a general clientele manage without loss. If the other partners are not willing, then we advise you to put your capital elsewhere, and Allah will replace it with something better.

Allah knows best

Mufti Mirza-Zain Baig