Purpose: Recent reports indicate that UAE Muslim consumers desire halal certification because they are concerned about the halal status of their purchases. However, to date, research on consumer worries has been anecdotal. The purpose of this paper is to quantify consumer concerns to determine which categories, if any, are problematic as well as the nature of consumer reservations. Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed a list of categories and halal concerns with qualitative methods then presented the resulting questionnaire to a non-probability sample of 300 UAE Muslim consumers. Findings: In total, 86.5 percent of respondents felt "great concern" that at least one ...