• al-ghurāb (the crow): with a ḍamma on the ghayn. It is a genus of perching birds and the name is applied to many species. What is meant here is the pied crow, also called ghurāb al-bayn. In one transmission of Muslim the word “al-abqaʿ” appears; it refers to a bird whose back and belly are marked with white. Some scholars have faulted this additional wording, and Ibn Qudāmah states that the unqualified versions are sounder. Its plural is ghirbān, and the limited plural is aghribah.
• al-faʾrah (the mouse): the hamzah is quiescent, though it may be lightened so that one says fār. Al-Jāmiʿ observes that most Arabs pronounce the hamzah. Zoologically it belongs to the Muridae within the order Rodentia and includes the rat, the mouse, the mole, and the like, whether large or small. Its plurals are fiʾrān and fīrān.
• al-kalb (the dog): the well-known animal in all its colours and shapes, a domesticated member of the Canidae family and the order Carnivora. Its plurals are kilāb and aklub; the female is kalbah, with the plural kalbāt.
• al-ʿaqūr (the vicious beast): the pattern faʿūl is an intensifier of ʿaqr, meaning to bite or wound. Thus al-ʿaqūr is the aggressive animal whose predatory nature prevails so that it often bites and injures people and livestock.
- Points derived from the hadith:
1 – It is permissible to kill the five creatures named in the hadith; the scholars agree on this. They differ, however, about the reason their killing has been legislated, and this will be discussed, God willing.
2 – It is likewise lawful to kill any harmful animal or insect—such as the snake, wolf, lion, vulture, buzzard, flea, or tick—by analogy with the hadith, which grants permission to kill them because of their viciousness; some of these are explicitly mentioned in other texts.
3 – The Ḥanafīs confine the ruling to the five animals stated in the text, whereas the majority of scholars extend it to every creature whose natural disposition is to harm. In their view, the text merely offers examples, and the concept of “number” in such contexts is not probative according to many scholars of legal theory.