THE MUSLIM AS CONSUMER AND THE RETAILER AS CUSTODIAN: INTERNALISED THEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT AND THE ADOPTION OF HALAL RETAIL OBLIGATIONS UNDER MS 2400-3:2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24191/ejitu.v9i2.12630Keywords:
Halal supply chain management, MS 2400-3:2019, Maqasid al-Shariah, Amanah, Retail governanceAbstract
Malaysian Standard MS 2400-3:2019 prescribes a management system for preserving halal integrity at the retail node, yet operational uptake among mixed-assortment retailers remains low even as Malaysia pursues leadership under the Halal Industry Master Plan 2030. Explanations from the Technology–Organisation–Environment view, institutional theory, and resource dependence theory each capture part of the problem, but they treat the standard as a quality-management overlay and leave unexamined the jurisprudential architecture that constitutes the retailer’s role in Muslim commerce. Working within a Sunni jurisprudential horizon, this theory-synthesis article develops the Theological–Operational Integration Framework (TOIF). It organises the relevant doctrines into a telos (Maqasid al-Shariah, with hifz al-din as the master objective); an internalised commitment that serves as the predictor, namely Amanah as fiduciary identity and Wara’ with its precautionary rule Ihtiyat as disposition, operationalised jointly as the Islamic Ethical-Institutional Commitment (IEIC) construct; and the compliance outcomes that commitment should produce through Sadd al-Dhara’i and the prohibition of Tadlis. A clause-by-clause mapping translates the standard into source doctrines, graded as fiqh-direct or analogical, and six propositions are stated in falsifiable form within an explicit nomological network. The central claim is bounded and untested: internalised theological role-construction is proposed to explain adoption variance that economics leaves unexplained, and its non-redundancy is put to ungameable tests that separate it from both myopia and far-sighted reputational hedging. The framework contributes a theology-grounded explanatory layer, the IEIC research agenda, and a dual-labelling and tiered-certification reform for policy.
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