and similar creatures, which should replace the author’s criterion of “being deemed repulsive”: namely, that every creature which the Lawgiver has commanded to be killed, or forbidden from being killed, is unlawful.

As for creatures whose killing has been forbidden, it is plainly clear that they are unlawful, for if one were to kill them, one would be doing what the Lawgiver has prohibited. As for those which one has been commanded to kill, this is because they are harmful and aggressive.

Those which one has been commanded to kill include the Prophet’s saying—may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him: “Five creatures are all harmful vermin and may be killed both within and outside the Sacred Precinct: the crow, the kite, the mouse, the scorpion, and the vicious dog.” (1) The snake, too, has been commanded to be killed (2), as has the gecko (3).

The creatures whose killing has been forbidden are four: the ant, the bee, the hoopoe, and the shrike (4). The shrike is a small bird resembling a sparrow, with a red beak. Some have said that it is what common people know as the ṣabrī.

His statement: “and all insects.” This is an example of what is deemed repulsive, such as the ṣārūr, the beetle, the dung beetle, flies, and the like.