[GillTeepbew]

Assalam O Alaikum

The Cinnabon in USA is not Halal because due to presnce of vanilla extract(containing 35% of alcohol), in frosting. This frosting is used on all products except Danish Stick. Although all the ingredients used in their products are kosher certified according to Mr. Hillard in R & D. He also sent me a partial list of the ingredients of their product which are not found on their website. The ingredients of rest of the products will tell the same story. Miss Brenda of Cinnabon in her e-mail to sister umm hurairah left two thing one is the ethyl alcohol(she mentioned benzyl alcohol which is never used in flavoring and also in food products). The second thing she forgot to mentioned that the natural and artificial flavor are used in their base products. The frosting contains two ingredients one is the vanilla extract containing 35% alcohol(MCG considered it as a not Halal ingredient) and the second is lemon extract where Propylene Glycol a Halal solvent was used according Mr. Hillard. They do not have frosting with only lemon extract. They do not have information about the presence or absence of alcohol in the base products. The only product which do not have a frosting is Danish Stick. The Danish stick again has natural and artificial flavor without the information of alcohol used in the flavor. I knew myself that the Danish contains flavor because I developed couple of Danish for a baking company.

Sister umm hurairah you mentioned Food Guide service or Darul Ifta. They can not claim that all the Hanafi accept Mufti Yousuf Sacha and Mufti Ashraf Usmani's fatwa. This is their illusion to provide all alcohol containing food products as Halal claiming all Hanafi accept it as Halal. Our Hanafi Mufti Mohammed Hafizur Rahman of Chicago and Hanafi Mufti Syed Ahmedul Quadri of IDEA Dallas, TX do not a consider a food product Halal if alcohol no matter what ever source was used as a solvent in natural and artificial flavor.
Mufti Yousuf Sacha and Mufti Ashraf Usmani are always forget that any intoxicant is Haram either in small quantity or large. It is very difficult to determine the source of alcohol used in flavoring either from grape or corn, it is possiblity that flavor companies can mix the alcohol from different sources. Even one of the Imam of Hajrat abu Hanifa disagree with Imam Youse whose refference those mufti saheban are mentioned in the flavoring.

The bottom line is that Muslim Consumer Group do not consider all Cinnabon products in USA as Halal products except Danish Stick which is considered as Mushbooh.

Syed Rasheeduddin Ahmed
www.muslimconsumergroup.com
www.canadianhalalfoods.com