The male is called ḍabʿān, the female ḍabʿānah, and the plural is ḍibāʿīn.

Points derived from the ḥadith

1. The report of the chapter demonstrates that eating its flesh is lawful and that it is classed as game, and game is, by default, permissible. The jurists, however, differ over its permissibility:
   • Imām al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad held it to be lawful, basing themselves on this ḥadith and on what al-Ḥākim recorded (1/623) with an authentic chain from Jābir: “The hyena is game, and its indemnity is an adult ram.”
   al-Tirmidhī said: “I asked al-Bukhārī about it, and he replied, ‘It is a sound ḥadith.’”
   • Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that eating it is forbidden.
   • Mālik considered it disliked.

   Abū Ḥanīfah’s proof for prohibition is the ḥadith: “Every predatory beast with fangs—its meat is ḥarām,” and the hyena possesses fangs.
   al-Awzāʿī said: “The scholars of Syria used to count it among the beasts of prey and deemed eating it disliked.”
   Ibn Qudāmah writes in al-Mughnī: “Such is the analogy, yet following the Sunnah takes precedence.”
   The sound view is that it is permissible, for al-Shāfiʿī stated: “People have continually eaten it and sold it between al-Ṣafā and al-Marwah without anyone objecting.”

2. Shaykh al-Islām said: “It is permissible according to the vast majority of scholars—including Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad and others—because the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘It is game,’ and instructed that it be eaten, and because the Arabs find its meat palatable and commend it.”

3. al-Damīrī writes in Ḥayāt al-Ḥayawān: “The hyena does not subsist by attacking prey; it survives without relying on its fangs.”
   Ibn al-Qayyim added: “Only those predators whose very nature is aggressive—such as the lion—have been declared forbidden,”