Malaysian Fatwa Bans E-Cigarettes

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

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CAIRO – A Malaysia’s fatwa council has issued a new fatwa banning the use of electronic cigarettes, or Vape, as haram for Muslims, in an edict that agrees with medical opinion

"We have discussed the issue of cigarettes and shisha and we can equate it with the Vape," the National Fatwa Council chairman, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Abd Shukor Husin, was quoted as saying by Utusan Malaysia on Tuesday, August 18.

“Firstly, it is dangerous, second, it is wasteful and third, it is detrimental to health. So when the effects are the same, we have declared it as haram.

"We have decided and there is no problem (with the fatwa). In fact, the Health Ministry has informed that they are waiting for (findings) from experts but we have gone ahead because fundamentally, if it is detrimental and wasteful, then we cannot agree to something like that."

The council’s decision was based on laws that were used against shisha, also known as water pipes or hookahs.

Shisha or water-pipe smoking was ruled haram in a fatwa issued on July 17, 2013.

It had said then that shisha smoking would have a detrimental effect in the health of the individual, national economic growth and shaping of future generations.

According to the council’s committee, all scientific findings from comprehensive studies in the country and internationally proved that shisha smoking was bad for health, and its widespread practice, particularly among youths and women, was worrying.

The Vape, or electronic cigarette (e-cig or e-cigarette), personal vaporizer (PV) or electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) are battery-powered vaporizers that simulates the feeling of smoking, but without the tobacco combustion.

The fatwa came one week after Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam was reported as saying that smoking using shisha, electronic cigarettes or Vaping devices should be temporarily stopped until findings on the risks are announced in two months’ time.

"From the ministry's viewpoint, we deem these to be also smoking but just using different methods. The smokers will experience the usual effects of smoking except that the tar content might be lower while the nicotine effect remains the same.

"Don't make it (shisha or electronic cigarette smoking) a habit or think it is fashionable," he had warned.

Smoking is embedded in the culture of many Muslim countries.

In Muslim-majority Malaysia 21.5 percent of the adult population smoked in 2006, according to the Third National Health and Morbidity Survey.

Scholars in many parts of the world have already taken on smoking.

In 2006, Lebanon's top Shiite scholar Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fadlallah issued a fatwa ordering his followers to stop smoking.

Saudi scholars have supported a major crackdown on smoking in the holy city of Makkah.

In January 2009, about 700 scholars of Indonesia Ulemas Council (MUI) banned smoking in public places and for children and pregnant women.

But they stopped short of issuing an all-out ban on smoking.

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