The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) will not ban hot dogs, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of Islamic affairs Jamil Khir Baharom said today.

Asked whether the name 'Pretzel Dog' was acceptable, Jamil Khir replied: "The name is not important, the contents are."

"It does not arise that Jakim and Islamic councils are banning popular and established food items, including hot dogs and those with similar names," he told reporters in the Parliament lobby.

Jamil Khir was commenting on the furore surrounding Jakim’s request that pretzel franchise Auntie Anne's changes the name of its 'Pretzel Dog' food item to 'Pretzel Sausage'.

This is in line with Jakim guidelines issued two years ago, which barred the use of names similar to non-halal products.

Prohibited names included ham, bacon, beer and bak kut teh.

However, checks with Jakim's halal directory showed that some halal certified food outlets do sell products labelled as vegetarian char siew, chicken ham and root beer.

Earlier in the House, Jamil Khir's deputy Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said there was space for negotiations when it came to the naming of food items.

Asyraf explained that the branding of products was part of the toyyiban (good) aspect of halal certification, which also took into consideration other factors such as cleanliness.

He also blamed the entire issue surrounding Auntie Anne's food item on a fake social media account.

"It is as though Jakim said Auntie Anne's products were not halal. Jakim has never banned, or marked (Auntie Anne's) as a non-halal company."

He said Auntie Anne's halal certification process was now at the stage where its central kitchen was being audited by Jakim.

Meanwhile on another matter, Asyraf said the Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (Risda) did not have the authority to issue halal certificates.

Risda announced last month that it and the Malaysia Institute of International Islamic Cooperation (Ikiam) were planning to launch a halal logo specifically for Muslim-made products.

‘People had deliberately zoomed in on the name’

Meanwhile, Jakim halal division director Sirajuddin Suhaimee said there were several conditions for the halal certification but people had deliberately zoomed in on the name.

“They just raised one issue to make it havoc,” he said.

This was despite Sirajuddin previously stating that the dogs were unclean and the word shouldn’t be associated with halal certification.

However, Sirajuddin said it was a general statement.

“We made a general statement based on the manual and procedure of halal certification application. Based on those guidelines,” he said.

Instead, he said Auntie Anne’s couldn’t get its halal certification as as its documentation was not complete.

The company has agreed to change its ‘Pretzel Dog’ product to ‘Pretzel Sausage’.