Imams al-Shafiʿi and Ahmad held that eating horse meat is lawful, for three principal reasons:

1. The hadith cited for this ruling is both sound and explicit.
2. Al-Bukhari (4219) and Muslim (1941) transmit Jabir’s report: “The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, forbade the meat of domesticated donkeys and permitted the meat of horses.”
3. Al-Tirmidhi (1793) records the wording: “The Messenger of Allah fed us horse meat and forbade us to eat donkey meat.”

This permissibility is also the position of the overwhelming majority of scholars, early and later—among them Ibn al-Zubayr, Shurayḥ, al-Hasan, ʿAtaʾ, Saʿid ibn Jubayr, Hammad ibn Zayd, al-Layth, Ibn Sirin, Sufyan al-Thawri, Abu Yusuf, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, Ibn al-Mubarak, Ishaq, Abu Thawr, and many other predecessors. Allah knows best.