with His Name at the outset of every matter.

If meat becomes unlawful simply because someone says over it, “In the name of the Messiah” or “in the name of Venus,” then it is even more surely unlawful when the animal is dedicated “for the sake of the Messiah or Venus,” or when that intention is harbored in the heart.

This makes plain the weakness of those—among some of our own scholars and others—who prohibit an animal slaughtered “in the name of” someone other than Allah yet do not prohibit one slaughtered for someone other than Allah. In fact, the opposite position would be more defensible, for worshipping anyone besides Allah is a far greater act of disbelief than merely seeking help from someone besides Him.

Accordingly, if a beast is slaughtered as an act of devotion to anyone other than Allah, the meat is forbidden even if the slaughterer pronounces, “In the name of Allah.” Such is the practice of a faction of the hypocrites in this community who offer sacrifices, burn incense, and the like to idols and celestial bodies. These people are apostates, and their slaughter can never be lawful; in their case two separate factors render the meat impermissible.

(The so-called offerings to the jinn)

In the same category falls what some ignorant folk in Mecca—may Allah ennoble it—and elsewhere do when they slaughter animals for the jinn. It is related that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, forbade the sacrifices offered to the jinn, and the evidence we have already cited—his prohibition of slaughtering in certain locations—supports this ruling.