His statement, “I will tell you about that,” indicates that this description—namely, that it is the knife of the Abyssinians—has a bearing on the prohibition: it may be the actual cause, a sign of the cause, a constituent quality of the cause, or an indicator of it. (1)

The Abyssinians are known for the length of their fingernails, and they perform slaughter with them, unlike other nations. It is therefore possible that the Prophet forbade it because it constitutes imitation of them in something distinctive to them. (2)

As for bone, his prohibition of slaughtering with it may be analogous to his prohibition of using it for istinjāʾ, for that would defile what has been allotted to the jinn, since blood is impure. Our purpose here is not to delve into the details of ritual slaughter, (3) for that discussion belongs elsewhere. (4)

Moreover, in the two Ṣaḥīḥs there is the report of al-Zuhrī (5) from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib (6), who said:

“Al-Baḥīrah is the she-camel whose milk is given (7) to the idols, so no one among the people milks her. As for the Sāʾibah, they would set it free for their deities and nothing would be made to carry loads upon it.”

He went on to say: Abū Hurayrah reported that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “I saw ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir al-Khuzaʿī (8) dragging his intestines …”