The second transmission states that the ruling is one of dislike, not outright prohibition. This is the view cited by al-Qāḍī and others, and—as I understand it—they derived it from a report transmitted by ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad. He said:

“I asked my father about an animal slaughtered for Venus. He replied, ‘It does not please me.’ I said, ‘Is eating it unlawful?’ He answered, ‘I will not say it is unlawful, but it is distasteful to me.’(1) In other words, he affirmed karāhah without declaring it ḥarām.

One might say that he hesitated to label it ‘forbidden’ because, in matters over whose prohibition the jurists differ and whose evidences appear contradictory—such as combining two slave-sisters in wedlock(2) and similar issues—there are two reports as to whether they should be called ḥarām. This parallels the two reports from him concerning matters disputed over their obligatoriness: should they be termed farḍ? There are likewise two views.

Some of our scholars used the term karāhah without clarifying whether they meant interdiction (taḥrīm) or mere disapproval (tanziyh). Abū al-Ḥasan al-Āmidī said: “Whatever is slaughtered for other than God—such as for churches, Venus, the sun, or the moon.” Aḥmad commented, “As for what has been dedicated to other than God,(3) I deem it reprehensible: every slaughter performed for other than God, for churches, or for their festivals—I dislike it. As for what the People of the Book slaughter purely as lawful slaughter (dhakāh), there is no harm in it.”

The same position is held by Mālik: he considers it disliked to eat what the Christians slaughter for their churches, or what they slaughter in the name of Christ, the cross, or the names of their departed priests and monks.(4)

Al-Mudawwanah records: “Mālik declared it disliked—though not forbidden—to eat what the People of the Book slaughter for their churches or for their festivals, interpreting the divine words, ‘…or sinfully dedicated to other than God’ (al-Anʿām 6:145).(5) He said…"