After halal erotica comes halal housing ...

As a cataloger of all things Halal, this blog has discussed everything from halal banking & halal wine, halal gripe water to halal kink. In fact this blog has the dubious honor of coming up with the idea of a halal search engine which was stolen by some dude in Netherlands who came up with imhalal but I digress. 

Anyways, it seems that Dutch are the market leaders when it comes to selling all things halal, they designed the halal search engine, sell halal erotica to Muslim brothers and sisters and now came up with halal housing. I was most impressed with this and wanted to research it some more but I was most disappointed when I found out that these halal houses are pretty much the same as other houses save some muslim showers and sliding doors that turn your living room into separate zanankhana and mardankhana. They have not mentioned if they will provide lotas with Muslim housing or if the residents will have to bring in their own when they move in. I actually do see it as a deal breaker. 

People like us have been living in halal housing all our lives without ever knowing it. 

Halal marketing FTW! 

Social networking is a bitch

Social networking is a bitch. There, I said it.

Let’s admit it. Most of us have a facebook account with around a couple of hundred friends, but we interact with very few of them on a regular basis. The rest are just there to remind us that we have miserable existence; our paychecks are tiny, our lives are grey and our love lives are insipid. 

I don’t know about others, but I have people on my “friend’s list” who are constantly vacationing in exotic locations, land high flying jobs with Fortune 500 companies even in the times of recession, attend exclusive fashion galas, are part of peace keeping missions in remote war torn areas and have flings with extra ordinary and interesting people while they are stationed in those remote war torn areas and … wait for it … walk the red carpet at Cannes Film Festival.

You know what is most ironic? The last status update was from a masochist whose sole aim in life was to get married to a heroin addict and get beaten by him every day when she was 19!

I am sure that I lead the most boring, soul less and miserable life among all the people I know where the most exciting part of my day is watching videos of Faisal Raza Abdi and cats playing with babies on YouTube (at least that’s what I used to do when we had YouTube, I now stare at the computer screen and think about those cat and baby videos). 

At times I yearn for good old days when we had limited access to the web were not constantly trying to prove to others that we matter. The competition between friends and family may remain gentle but social networking at workplace is brutal.

When I started working for a newspaper, we only had access to office email system and no web browsing on our office computers, before anyone screams how we used to get anything done without the internet, I would say the old fashioned way. We would get off our chairs, step out and gather info on spot to write our stories or we do that via phone if we are too lazy or pressed for time. Fast forward a decade and it is unheard of that a decent workplace would be without high speed internet. What’s more, most allow access to all kinds of social networking websites for their employees. 

It’s not that most employers are bursting with goodwill for their employees and want them to have fun posting on wrestle mania’s facebook page or tweeting about the aloo gosht they just had. I have a strong suspicion that the employers are onto something and they want their employees to feel miserable about the better lives of other people, fear impending unemployment and even more misery if they fail to do their jobs. This will keep them in line without using any untoward strategies and ensure productivity. 

In my previous workplace, we had a guy who was supposed to assist us with IT related stuff but whenever you would call him, he would not pick up his phone. When you go to his desk, he would be half lying on the chair with thick head phones on and would be watching something, if not that, he would be chatting with his girl friend. One day I wondered aloud why can’t he do that at home, another colleague told me that his wife and two kids (he had a third kid later) would probably cramp his style. I think employers also allow social networking at work to ensure loyalty and uninterrupted employment of the workers who are cheating on their wives. 

Another reason why employers allow you access to social networking site is that people think that if you are not on facebook, you must be at least anti social or at worst a batshit crazy person. You need proof of that; the dude who shot people after The Dark Knight Rises viewing in Colorado or the Norway mass murderer Anders Breivik, both did not have facebook profiles. 

It is ironic that now both of them have Wikipedia pages and its content cannot be controlled by them. A cousin who wanted to bolster his intellectual credentials by not using any of the social networking websites was told to sign up asap while applying for an FMGC firm in Singapore, they do not hire people without facebook accounts and the HR manager is supposed to have full access to the employees’ facebook pages.

Apart from official prying that HR does on behalf of the employers, colleagues too snoop through social networking websites. Back when I used to work for an international organization, the pay slip for the month of August was the most anticipated pay slip of the year. Out annual increments used to be announced through August pay slip and we would get to know if our increment would be a measly 3 per cent, a respectable 10 per cent or a whopping 18 per cent. We were also advised to not share our financial details with other colleagues but everyone would soon gather all the details. How would they find out; through facebook updates of course.  If the status update is gloomy, it’s likely that the person got the derisory 2 per cent raise and if the person is splurging on a sushi dinner with the spouse, chances are that he is the lucky one who got the 18 per cent increase. 

Some employers discourage the use of social networking websites during work hours, their reasoning is simple. They don’t want people getting wishful and dreamy eyed looking at the photos taken at those exotic vacations by the facebook friend on company’s time. Personally, I would love that, why because slacking is our national method of whiling the days away and social networking just makes it just easier. I want people to make an effort to be slackers, if they cannot put time and energy at their work, the least they can do is make an effort to slack. Secondly, I would love it if people like that IT guy would be caught by their wives.  In any case, with smart phones starting from Rs 9000 and cheapest possible internet rates, slacking  sorry, social networking on your own dime would not you cost you much. 

Originally written for monthly news magazine Pique 

Main naheen manta, main naheen manta

Chotay Mian sahib has got to be the most easily threatened politician in Pakistan.  Soon after the Tsunami Jalsa of PTI in Lahore last year, CM Shahbaz launched his facebook page – with all the requisite fan fair of course – to stay connected to people. He also tweets, he may not respond to criticism and allegations of nepotism, but he does reminisce about good old days when his choice in music was more Freddie Mercury and less Habib Jalib and even his detractors would agree that a man who professes his love for the Queen has got to be endearing in one way or another.  

Though Chotay Mian Sahab has over 124,000 likes on his facebook page, he is not satisfied with the numbers so he asked the top district officials and policemen in all 36 districts of the province, as well as regional police officers and commissioners to join Shehbaz Sharif’s official Facebook page.

Apparently, ordering them to “like” his facebook page was not enough, so he also asked them – politely of course – to remove any PTI-related material from their Facebook accounts. It goes without saying that they are NOT supposed to “like” any PTI page.

Seriously! Looks like our politicians still behave like kids attending grade school and are still governed by the logic that you can’t be my friend if you are talking to that other boy. Most grade school kids will eventually grow up and get over this phase, the same, unfortunately cannot be said about our politicians. Looks like Punjab government officials will have to comply with Chotay Mian Sahib’s wishes; otherwise he may start signing off official documents with “Main naheen manta, main naheen manta.”

 

PS: The story initially came out on The Express Tribune but was taken of their website after a few hours, fortunately siasat.pk has cross posted it on their page.

Living with the internet nanny

Pakistan has the dubious distinction of being placed quite high on all the lists that a country must avoid. While it is one the most corrupt countries with bad governance record, it is also the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism in. In addition, we are not far behind the countries that top the lists for suppressing the rights of religious minorities and have high maternal and infant mortality rates. Despite all this, Pakistan was doing ok as far as freedom to internet access was concerned. Not any more, as the government is just done seeking proposals to build a firewall that will filter and block a whopping50 million undesirable URLs. 

Censorship is not alien to Pakistan. The country has suffered numerous dictatorships and emergencies to be familiar with restriction and suppression. Nor it is the only country in the region that is trying its hand at internet filtering. Burma, Yemen, Bahrain, and Qatar monitor political discussion and access to information in their countries. The “great Firewall” that engulfs over a billion strong China is known to all. Governments in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE also filter content which they deem unsuitable to the cultural and religious sensibilities of their societies. Unlike all these countries which are either monarchies or authoritarian regimes, Pakistan is a multiparty democracy. Paradoxical is the fact that the political party currently forming the government not only claims but also has a history of battling dictators and censorship in the past.

The proposal calls for a blanket ban on pornographic and undesirable content but who gets to decide what will be tabled under the category of pornography? Feminist and gay rights websites have been filed under pornography in the regimes that block cyber content to limit people’s access to gender awareness and alternative lifestyles in the past. Even high profile social media websites like Facebook and Twitter have been called dating websites spreading immorality to curb access to them.

The government has already blocked alternative news websites such as Baloch Hal and others featuring stories from Balochistan that do not get any space in mainstream media, who knows what else will be bracketed ‘undesirable’ once the filters are in place and will be blocked. The centralized nature of the database under the proposed filtering system will enable the government to do it efficiently. It should also be noted that proposal does not call for any oversight or contribution from the elected representatives, rights groups, civil society organizations or any of the consumer groups.

As part of their licensing agreement with Pakistan Telecom Authority, all the internet service providers donate money for the National ICT R&D Fund that called for the proposal. As the ISPs get their money from the users, it will be the users who will end up paying for the cyber surveillance against themselves. How ironic!

In the day and age when most people are moving away from traditional sources of information, entertainment and employment and turning to the World Wide Web for it all, people will find ways to circumvent the government ban and all the money spent on the project would go down the drain.

Life with a firewall which monitors content is just like living with an cyber nanny who has the authority to slap your wrists if you said something or sought information that she does not like, what sensible adult would want to live like that? 

First published in The Express Tribune

Calling out the real bullies

Bullies; we have all heard of them at some point in our lives, the more unfortunate ones amongst us have faced the wrath of bullies at no provocation at all. However, very few of us stand up to them. In fact people who get bullied often lash out at their well wishers who either point out the fact that they are being bullied or tell them to give it back to their bullies. 

Something similar happened with Najam Sethi on the eve of February 7^th. In his TV show, Najam Sethi ran a clip of Maulana Fazlur Rehman alluding that Imran Khan of PTI is politicking at the behest of some nameless and faceless Jews. He also ran a clip of Mr. Imran Khan saying that Maulana Fazlur Rehman is one of the three people who are responsible for the mess the country is in. Sethi later on said that Imran Khan should have been more vocal in his defense and should have denounced Maulana more vociferously than he did because Maulana will not let go of Imran Khan’s Jewish connection (Khan’s ex-wife and mother of his children is of Jewish, Catholic & Protestant heritage) and will use it again and again during the elections later this year.

Jemima Khan, Khan’s ex-wife, heard the words “Imran Khan, Jewish lobby, conspiracy” and without actually watching the programme or asking anyone with a better grasp of Urdu, jumped to the conclusion that it was Najam Sethi who was stirring up trouble for Khan. She was never considered particularly bright by anyone of note, and now even less so when she took to the microblogging website, Twitter, to start a personal attack on Najam Sethi (She wrote that Mr Sethi has always been critical of Imran Khan except when his wife and Mr Sethi wanted an invitation to dinner with late Princess Diana) perhaps undermining the credibility of Mr. Sethi as a journalist.

What followed that was just as crazy as any other war of words on social media is, but it is significant in revealing that politics based on religion is not just here and now, it is flourishing with every passing day. No one is willing to take on this issue head-on, instead they either try to shoot the messenger – in this case Najam Sethi – or join forces with the forces spreading vitriolic hatred against the other.  It was Maulana Fazlur Rehman who first spoke about Khan’s Jewish connection but it was Sethi – an easier target who can perhaps only retaliate with arguments instead of something more sinister or dangerous – who got burned for just pointing his fingers to the bully in question.

Some really charged up PTI member even started an online campaign for Sethi to be removed from the air for “making some immoral remarks about Imran Khan’s ex-wife Jemima Khan.” The fact that the campaign has received 631 signatures as yet tells us a lot about how people form opinions – divorced from reason, nuance, logic – and choose their candidate based on that very opinion come election time.  

In past, Imran Khan has been roughed up by the goons of Islami Jamiat Talaba in Punjab University but we have not heard such vehement condemnation for them, either because of political expediency or because of the fact that PTI was afraid of a repeat performance. Whatever the reason is, no one is calling out the real bullies who are getting away with all kinds of transgressions. 

An edited version was first published in The Express Tribune

PS: I guess Jemima Khan is quite fond of picking up fights with random people on twitter, sometimes they are famous journalists like Najam Sethi, sometimes they are nobodies like me. Here is an account of Jemima Bibi calling me names for questioning if hers is the real account before she got verified.

Social Seating! Somebody kill me already

Anyone who has had to travel with KLM repeatedly would agree with me on three counts. Firstly, their seats in the economy section are a little too close for comfort. Secondly, their crew wears a hideous blue uniform – your eyes actually hurt if you look at that colour for more than 1 minute and 34 seconds. Lastly, the crew is geriatric enough to make you feel guilty if you ask for a glass of water twice. 

At one point in time, I used to travel to Netherlands pretty frequently, after traveling with them a few times, I decided to change airlines. It’s not like I get a direct flight (Pakistan unfortunately is NOT te choice destination for most Western airline companies) and if I have to change a plane at Doha or Dubai, I might as well fly an airline with better seats and in-flight entertainment program. I am sure there must have been so many other passengers who decided not to travel with KLM for the very same reasons – unless they are masochist who like cramped leg space or midgets – or both.

According to rumors, in order to win those and some other new – read desperate – passengers; KLM is introducing a new service called “Social Seating.” The Dutch airline is developing a service that will allow the travelers to find the most compatible person in the flight to share their journey with, based on their social media profile. What the fuck! I will now have to share my facebook and LinkedIn profile on the counter before I get my boarding pass!!!

Forget catching up on the movies that you have missed in your local cinema and are too lazy to download, forget reading that trashy novel that you wanted to get hold of but did not do so at home because you were too afraid of being judged by your sibling, husband or cook. Forget catching up on the lost sleep on that 7 hour long flight, you will be sitting next to the most compatible person on the plane who probably would want to chat with you about the existentialist angst in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road that you have listed as your favourite book on facebook. Never mind the fact that you probably clicked ‘like’ on it 4 years ago to impress a chick in grad school; social seating would not care for your intellectual pretense, it will punish you for it.

Being an anti social being, I couldn’t care less about social seating. Any airline that wants to win my business needs to provide me with two services and I would be their most loyal customer; more leg space (yes, tall people are obsessed with more leg space) and an assurance that I will never get to sit with parents who travel with crying babies and nosey toddlers they can’t control.

PS: Before anyone goes on to judge me for keeping my distance from messy toddlers, they must read this horror story from hell. 

You want a picture? With me?

When I was asked to attend Pakistan’s first ever social media summit earlier this month, I jumped to it. Because not only it gave me a chance to visit the old country (for me, Karachi would always be old country), it also gave me the opportunity to meet some old friends and make some brand new ones.

VJ Mathira (Baji Online) with one of her admirers

The organizers held an informal dinner for the participants to mingle and get to know each other before the summit. Though stand up comedienne Saad Haroon made us all laugh, the star of the show was VJ Mathira who was there in all her sartorial glory including blue contact lenses and leopard print wedge heels. Most men wanted to get their pictures taken with Mathira and she graciously obliged. (The men must be all be silently thanking Tristram Perry for inviting Mathira over)

The summit started next morning and during the opening session, US Consul General in Karachi William Martin said Pakistan is one of the fastest-growing Facebook- and Twitter-using nations in the world but he also lamented the fact that a lot of Pakistanis love to come up with conspiracy theories implicating US in all kinds of wrongdoings in Pakistan which makes his job a tad more difficult.  

The opening session was followed by 3 panel discussions on ‘Education and Good Governance: Going Digital’, ‘Women and Social Activism in the New Media Era’ and ‘Monetizing your Social Media Space.’ Knowing that no matter what I do, learning to monetize my social media space is something I won’t learn in an hour and half, I decided to attend the panel on Education and good governance because it has some relevance to my day job.

There were several breakout sessions following the panel discussions on various topics. One of the sessions that I was looking forward to attend to was on “Humor in cyberspace” but the speaker pulled a joke on us and decided not to show up. As we were waiting for the speaker to show up, Jahanzeb Haque of Jay Toons got up and decided to talk about how he started his xkcd inspired stick figures cartoon strip. When he introduced himself, there were audible gasps among the female audience with “OMG, you are Jay Toons guy?” He drew a couple of his strips, including one of his self censored cartoons for the participants and discussed whether art should be created just for the sake of art or does it has to have a higher message. Jahanzeb Haque, or Jay Toons are he was called during the session, was obviously the rock star of the summit. At least I have not heard girls gasping and going breathless at the mention of any other name.

What did I take away from the event? Even though I have been blogging for 4 years now, I never took my blog seriously; for me it was a place where I vent without any editorial guidelines and delays. But the response by some of the participants at the summit made me realize that there are people who not only care what I write, but they do attach a lot of importance to my opinion and I am truly grateful to all of you guys. I am still reeling from the fact that a very smart and intelligent young reader of my blog wanted to get his picture taken with me. I now know how Meera feels and can empathize with her.

PS: Must thank Raza and Tristram publicly for inviting me and giving me an opportunity to feel like a celebrity. 

PPS: A special shout out to @pishipotty for his twitter handle.

PPPS: I made it to the Tribune's twitterati of Pakistan but they called me brainchild behind A Reluctant Mind. I thought A Reluctant Mind was MY brainchild.

Find the complete version on The Friday Times

Twitter, Imran Khan and Aafia

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Twitter is fun. If you are lucky, you can annoy other people and have fun at their expense. It all gets funnier if the people you make fun of are Z list celebrities who are also on twitter and are probably following you.

A friend and I had doubts about a Jemima Khan profile on twitter as we were not sure if it was a genuine account or not. So in a conversation last night, I wondered if it could be a fake Jemima Khan account. It was an innocuous conversation and we forgot about it, she apparently she saw that, got pissed and in order to prove that she is the real McCoy she scanned her passport with all the details and put it up on twitter! I mean I know she is a blonde and not particularly a bright one (she married Imran Khan after all), but who puts up their passport details on a public twitter account which is open for all?

As if that was not enough drama, some desi men with fantasies of skinny blonde British women falling for them jumped in acting like knights in shining armor advising Jemima to remove her passport details. She then put up another photo of her passport – minus the details – on twitter (she has later removed them both but a pal from across the border saved that passport photo & emailed it to me). I mean what were those gentlemen thinking, she has had a Desi man, she is not gonna fall for another one. One desi dude in one lifetime was enough, dontcha think?

Anyways, that got me started along with two other tweeters, Naheed and Mirza on all things Jemima and her erstwhile husband. Mirza shared that in another century, Liz Hurley and Imran Khan had dated. It just reminded me that in the same century, Liz Hurley and Hugh grant also dated and then Imran Khan got married to Jemima and then Jemima dated Hugh Grant and now perhaps Imran Khan is dating the whole Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which makes it kinda really kinky circle. Mirza then suggested that maybe it’s time Imran Khan and Hugh Grant should get up close and personal. In any case, Jemima has beaten Mr. Khan when it comes to getting intimate with famous people of the same sex – remember the lip lock between Kate Moss and Jemima (it generates 183,000 links if you google it - in case anyone wanted to know that).

By that time, Jemima Khan got really angry and gave me two names; twalker (that’s twitter stalker) and tweak (twitter freak). Now I am all game for name calling but they have to be smart and inventive. If only Ms Goldsmith had actually spent some time in college in her younger days instead of playing house with an aging Lothario, she would have known that tweak is actually a proper English word found in all major English language dictionaries. Her exact tweet was something like this: “What a relief to discover you can block the tweaks (twitter freaks). I'm banishing dissidents like a despot.” Even the statement was kind of a let down. After writing 'expert' articles on democracy in Pakistan in esteemed publications like Vogue and Harper's, I never expected such naked despotic glee from Ms Goldsmith.

We decided to let go of Ms Goldsmith and stick to her former and far juicier half. Naheed asked us if Imran Khan has remarried and then started listing the names of all the women Imran Khan has ever been with but I suggested that we need to leave that alone. After all, if one starts listing all Imran Khan's exes, 140 characters wouldn't be able to do him any justice. That man has been very very busy for most of his adult life and he is in now in his late 50s.

As far as Imran’s second round at nuptials is concerned, I have a feeling he will do a complete turnaround. In the past, much to chagrin of all the aunties (who were not really aunties back then) he had almost exclusively dated foreigners. Now, in his new Maseeha-e-Islam avatar, he will only take the plunge when 'Qaum ki Beti' Aafia Siddiqui returns. Imagine a wedding invite that says ‘Imran Khan weds Aafia Siddiqui’, would it not be a Jamat-e-Islami and Talibaan wet dream? If Ms Siddiqui agrees to marry Imran Khan, then nothing can stop him from becoming the most powerful man in Pakistan.

Naheed disagreed with me. She believes that Aafia Siddiqui will sell Imran Khan at the juma bazaar for a bucketful of ammonium nitrate, which got me thinking. Ms. Siddiqui is a paak baaz Muslim woman, she will probably not agree to a union with a former play boy who has been with MTV VJs (tauba tauba haram). In any case, if the choice of her last husband, Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and ten years her junior, is any indication of her taste, she is into young Jihadist boy toys, not old Romeos like Imran Khan.


PS: I still have Jemima's passport shot with me but I chose not to publish it, for obvious reasons.

New Year Facebook status updates from hell

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As soon as we are done with Christmas, emails, text messages and general announcements regarding the impending end of the year start appearing on social networking sites, wishing no one in particular. 

There are those who want to sound philosophical and super intellectual and they would use words like existentialism and nihilism in their facebook status updates. One such update goes something like this:

This whole New Year business is just another reaffirmation of the inherent nihilism of our existence. Suddenly whats important is the launch of a new set of an arbitrary number of days, at an arbitrary moment in time initially chosen by an arbitrary group of people, an arbitrary number of years ago. Great going mankind.

WTF? Does anyone even bother reading stuff like this after the first line?

Then there are those who want the rest of us to know that they live in cooler places and actually have a life. Their status updates would be something like:

Having the time of my life at Sydney Harbour Bridge, yeayyyy!!!!

Or

Happy new year to you all from snowy NYC!!!

Notice that such messages are followed by multiple exclamation marks, as if living in New York is exclamation worthy or a snowy NYC in December is a sign of wonder. 

There are some who just want to sound enigmatic or contradictory or both and they would write something along the lines of:

Happy New Year. We live in shitty times.

Or

Looking back with gratitude, looking forward with hope.

I find such statuses most annoying. Gratitude for what? Hope for what? The sooner we lose hope and come to terms with the fact that life is gallactically fucked up, the better it is for the sanity of the society in general and for the cyber dwelling facebooking cynics like me in particular.

Apart from the dreamy or intellectual ones, there are some practical types. They don’t wish for world peace -- they know it is unattainable -- they only want prosperity and opportunity for their loved ones. One such message that I saw last night goes something like:

Happy new year to all my friends and family members. May this year bring us lots of wealth, prosperity and opportunities in our life (Aameen)

And last but not the least is the super cheery ones. They are so happy, they can make you go blind with optimism and turn anyone normal into a homicidal maniac with their glee. Check this one out:

--- is wishing everyone an Extremely Happy New Year 2010! May we all lose our belly fat and unsightly pimples, get gorgeous hair and hefty pay-raises and may the wrath of the Almighty fall upon anyone who looks prettier than us in group photographs. Amen! xXx ♥

What is wrong with this person? Why is she so happy over a bloody new year? Did she win a Pulitzer Prize, or an Oscar? Has she spoken with Kurt Cobain’s ghost who told her about a huge stash of heroine that he had hidden back in 1990 and is now worth millions? Did she sign a million dollar book deal? Has she shacked up with Prince William or did she win a fucking lottery? 

We are finally here, in 2010 and we shall be here for another 12 months. Can we get it done and over with New Year messages please?

Update: The number of people ended up on my post looking for best new year facebook status updates is astounding. Facebook apparently rules.

...and the halalness saga continues ...

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Honestly, I never thought that my blog posts would be taken seriously by anyone, let alone makers of a halal search engine.

A few weeks back, PTI reviewed one of my previous posts about a halal browser and commented that although the post was in good humour, it was taken very seriously by the more pious readers. That report was carried by Pune Mirror, Yahoo India and The American Conservative to name a few.

A Dutch company came up with a halal search engine (If there exists a Halal browser, please enlighten me about it) with help of which Muslims will be able to surf the internet without the fear of accidentally encountering sinful material. The site is called www.iamhalal.com and comes with the tagline; I search halal, I am halal (wonder what does that make a bonafide google worshiper like me).

Now, I am not a narcissist nutcase who believes that the whole world is copying her but these guys totally stole my idea of three levels of halalness – or rather haramness.

If you type a word that is deemed inappropriate by the search engine, you will be warned in 3 levels of haram.

A query for the term “Suicide bombings” is considered level 1 haram and came with this warning.

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 1 out of 3. This means that the results fetched by ImHalal.com could be haram!

The word “Sex” was deemed level 2 Haram. The warning for it goes something like this:

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 2 out of 3. This means that the results fetched by ImHalal.com could be haram!

Searching a word like “Fornication” would put the search engine on red alert (literally) and the warning would come in red letters.

Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 3 out of 3! I would like to advise you to change your search terms and try again

Honestly, this search engine is in a bad taste. Words like love, kissing and Nazi are level 1 haram and words like gay, lesbian and sexy are level 3 haram but words like fascism, nigger, molester, murder and torture are totally halal.

What kind of weird world we live in where adult Muslims would actively seek an internet nanny to filter stuff for them!

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