The halal ingredient reference
Is it halal?
Check the label,
not the rumour.
891 additives and ingredients. Every classification is attributed to a named certifier or scholarly body, with a link to the original — and where they disagree, we show you the disagreement instead of picking a side.
- 576
- Verified halal
- 244
- Source-dependent
- 4
- Scholarly disagreement
- 47
- Verified haram
- 20
- Insufficient evidence
884 food entries · 129 supplement entries · every one linked to its source
The ones people ask about most
Deep pages with every authority's position side by side.
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Source-dependent
Gelatin
The single most important ingredient to check in processed food. Gelatin is a protein boiled from animal skin, bones and connective tissue — and in We…
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Disputed
Carmine (cochineal)
A red dye crushed from cochineal insects. The majority of scholars and most certifiers rule it haram; a minority permit it. This is a genuine disagree…
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Source-dependent
Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids
The emulsifier in bread, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter. The same E-number covers palm-oil production and pig-fat production, and food law doe…
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Disputed
Vanilla extract
Real vanilla extract is vanilla beans steeped in alcohol and water. Whether that alcohol carrier matters is one of the most genuinely contested questi…
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Disputed
Shellac
The shine on chocolate raisins, jelly beans and coated tablets comes from a resin secreted by the lac insect. Whether that makes it haram is a live di…
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Source-dependent
Magnesium stearate
If you take one supplement habit seriously, make it this one. Magnesium stearate is in most tablets and capsules, it can be plant or pork derived, and…
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Source-dependent
L-Cysteine
The additive that makes commercial bread dough workable. Its cheapest historical source was human hair — which is why this otherwise obscure amino aci…
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Source-dependent
Gelatin capsules (medicines and supplements)
Nearly every softgel and most hard capsules are gelatin, and the bottle rarely says which animal. This is the supplement version of the gelatin proble…
Why this site exists
Most halal ingredient lists give you a single word — halal, haram — with no source and no explanation. That is not useful when the same additive is halal from palm oil and haram from pork fat, which is exactly the case for E471, the most common emulsifier in your supermarket.
So every entry here shows the classification and who issued it, linked. Where IFANCA, JAKIM, the Hanafi fatwa bodies and the certifier references disagree — on alcohol carriers, on insect-derived colours, on L-cysteine — you see all the positions and decide with your own scholar.
Browse by additive class
All 365 E-numbers, grouped the way the numbering system groups them.