ﷺ returned the wild donkey to the man who had presented it and explained that he declined it solely because he was in a state of iḥrām. Several Companions adopted this view, among them ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās, and Ibn ʿUmar.

The majority of jurists—including Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and Isḥāq—took a middle position between the two earlier opinions: game hunted by a non-pilgrim specifically for a pilgrim is forbidden to that pilgrim alone, whereas game not hunted for him remains lawful for him. Among the Companions, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān endorsed this view.

This position reconciles the proofs cited by both sides and is supported by the report recorded by Imām Aḥmad (1365), Abū Dāwūd (1577), al-Tirmidhī (846), and al-Nasāʾī (2778) from Jābir, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared: “Land game is lawful for you while you are in iḥrām, provided that you do not hunt it yourselves or have it hunted for you.”

Al-Tirmidhī commented on this ḥadīth: “Some scholars act upon it; they see no harm in a pilgrim eating game so long as he neither hunts it himself nor has it hunted on his behalf.”

Al-Shāfiʿī said, “This is the finest and most analogically sound ḥadīth transmitted in this chapter, and practical rulings are based on it.”

In summary: if a non-pilgrim hunts an animal specifically for a pilgrim, it is unlawful for the pilgrim to eat it; but if the animal was not hunted for him—rather the non-pilgrim hunted it for himself or for another non-pilgrim—then it is not forbidden to the pilgrim. This is the stance of the majority. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr remarked, “On this interpretation the ḥadīths all remain sound and consistent; the Sunnah must therefore be construed in this way, so that none of its parts contradict the others whenever it is possible to harmonize them.”

Ibn al-Qayyim likewise stated, “The narrations from the Companions on this matter point only to this very distinction, and there is no conflict among the Prophet’s ﷺ ḥadīths.”