presented him with meat, not a live animal.
There is no contradiction between this and his eating from the game (1) hunted by Abū Qatādah, since the incident involving Abū Qatādah occurred in the year of al-Hudaybiyah, in 6 AH. More than one scholar has stated that the incident involving al-Sa‘b occurred during the Farewell Pilgrimage, including Muhibb al-Tabarī in his book The Farewell Pilgrimage (2), and others (3). This, however, requires further examination. Regarding the account of the gazelle and al-Bahzī’s wild ass (4): did it occur during the Farewell Pilgrimage or during one of his ‘umrahs? Allah knows best.
If Abū Qatādah’s hadith is understood to mean that he did not hunt it for the Prophet, and al-Sa‘b’s hadith to mean that it was hunted for him, the difficulty disappears. This is supported (5) by Jābir’s hadith traced back to the Prophet:
“Land game is lawful for you, so long as you do not hunt it yourselves and it is not hunted for you” (6).
The hadith has, however, been criticized on the grounds that al-Muttalib ibn Hantab, who narrated it from Jābir, is not known to have heard directly from him. This was stated by al-Nasā’ī (7).