Buyer Beware

[muslimactuary]

Well, its been a tough week again. My wife is still very sick.  Been sick for a month now.  Well, we are doing our best to survive this ramadhan.  One thing that has struck me is the real need for the buyer to beware in Malaysia. Some of the takaful products being sold are halal in theory, but our money is still being put into haram investments, which doesn't sound kosher to me.  Another thing is with respect to halal food. Recently found out that when clinics give medicine which are in capsule form (the ones with a coating on the outside and the medicine inside in powder form), the ones made in western countries are more than likely made with gelatine, i.e. animal fat, which is thus not halal. It would be nice to think it is chicken fat, but not promises it isn't pork. Scary thought. Also, when shopping a Giant we found Cambells soup which was not halal (made in western countries, contained meat and no halal chop), and Jello being sold (has gelatine, made in the US and no halal chop).  All this is scary as its unlikely someone in the kampung would be able to judge what is halal and what is not.

Another thing which has hit me this week is a renewed passion to make our office a center of excellence for the takaful world.  We have some smart people now, and hopefully can use this to start publishing articles.  In particular I hope to encourage Firdaus and Syuhada to start publishing, perhaps together with myself.  We can only plan. The rest is up to God.  Of course we are loaded with smart non-Muslims as well, that can eventually start publishing things related to RBC and actuarial appraisals.