Highly unpopular opinion - Muslims need to retake Islam back from the elitist scholarly class who derive authority not from leadership or being learned about topics but because of religious titles and superiority.
Some honest local scholars are ignored in favor of celebrities.
There are hardly any celebrity muslims who are true scholars. Those that are humble and not looking for name recognition. Traditionally most titles were assigned by a government authority (although also attained through ijaza and isnad). Without religious government here in the west it could be beneficial to have a certificating authority like how we already do such for zabiha.
I'd disagree. the halal meat certification is a Mafia in the West.
you've gotta make essentially royalty payments to keep your cert by only buying from approved meat suppliers who charge more $ per pound of meat for the certification.
if you don't buy from the certified place, their goons will leave negative reviews on your business to try to destroy you if you didn't comply
What kind of double certification thing you got going there on the east coast? Maybe I picked an analogy that doesn't translate.
What I'm trying to say is something like a certifying authority could perhaps hold in check the power of muslim org boards that currently are lacking.
