In his first long-form interview, released by Jamal Al Mulla on 7 November 2026, the Emirati billionaire Ali Albwardy, owner of Spinneys in the UAE, was asked about the pork sold in some of his branches.

He was not troubled at all.

An outside company runs the pork section, he explained. Spinneys only rents out the floor space. Then he said the words that have since travelled around the world:

«فحللناها، طبعاً يجوز»

“So we made it halal. Of course it is permissible.”

His reasons: it is licensed by the authorities and the government; it is kept separate; and it is not sold in areas where citizens live, but mostly in “European” areas.

The oldest trick in the book

In the year of the conquest of Makkah, Rasulullah ﷺ declared:

«إنَّ اللهَ ورسولَه حرَّم بيعَ الخمرِ والميتةِ والخنزيرِ والأصنامِ»

“Allah and His Messenger have forbidden the sale of wine, carrion, swine and idols.”

In the same hadith he ﷺ said:

«قاتل اللهُ اليهودَ، إنَّ اللهَ لمَّا حرَّم شحومَها جمَلوه ثم باعوه فأكلوا ثمنَه»

“May Allah destroy the Jews. When Allah forbade them the fat, they melted it down, sold it, and ate its price.” (Bukhari 2236; Muslim 1581)

They did not eat the fat. They changed its form and kept the money. Renting out the shelf instead of ringing up the sale is melted fat in a modern wrapper.

And the rule is general:

«إنَّ اللهَ إذا حرَّم على قومٍ أكلَ شيءٍ حرَّم عليهم ثمنَه»

“When Allah forbids a people from eating something, He forbids them its price.” (Abu Dawud 3488)

Rent taken from a pork counter is that price by another name. And leasing the space knowingly is exactly the cooperation Allah ﷻ forbids:

﴿وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ﴾

“Do not cooperate in sin and transgression.” (al-Ma’idah 5:2)

Three excuses, three admissions

“It is licensed by the government.” A licence makes something legal. It does not make it halal. Halal and haram are not issued by a municipality:

﴿وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَا تَصِفُ أَلْسِنَتُكُمُ الْكَذِبَ هَٰذَا حَلَالٌ وَهَٰذَا حَرَامٌ لِّتَفْتَرُوا عَلَى اللَّهِ الْكَذِبَ﴾

“And do not say about what your tongues falsely describe, ‘This is halal and this is haram,’ to invent lies against Allah.” (an-Nahl 16:116)

“It is isolated.” A partition around a sin does not remove it from the building’s ledger.

“We don’t sell it where citizens live.” This is the most revealing line of all. If it were truly halal, why keep it away from Emiratis? You do not hide what you believe to be clean. The concealment is the confession.

Where the real danger lies

Pork has been sold in the Gulf behind “for non-Muslims” signs for decades. That is not the news.

The news is a Muslim owner reaching for the word halal, and following it with yajuz, a Shar‘i ruling, to describe the profit from it, on camera, while the clip is passed around as a clever business story.

A sin that is admitted is still a sin. A sin that is relabelled as halal corrupts the Deen itself. The ‘ulama have long warned that declaring halal what Allah has made haram is graver than committing the sin.

This is how dajl works: making a lie look like the truth. It does not deny the haram. It renames it.

What do we do?

Not outrage. Clarity.

• Give sincere naseehah, privately where possible.
• Spend our money where we can do so with a clear conscience.
• Refuse the new vocabulary. Call haram what Allah called haram.

Rasulullah ﷺ said:

«الحلالُ بيِّنٌ والحرامُ بيِّنٌ»

“The halal is clear and the haram is clear.” (Bukhari 52; Muslim 1599)

Clip: Ali Albwardy in conversation with Jamal Al Mulla (Jamal Al Mulla Network, 7 November 2026). Faces blurred; subtitles translated by Fitnah Watch.