one, it is prohibited only because the two cannot be distinguished.” This view accords more closely with the natural instincts of jurists, whereas the former is more characteristic of those who do not recognize in things themselves any properties that warrant their being lawful or unlawful. Such a person says: “Both are prohibited; only the reason for the prohibition differs.”
The precise explanation is that the one issuing the prohibition intends only that the unrelated woman and the carrion be avoided. The harm on account of which the particular thing is prohibited exists in that thing alone. Avoiding the other, however, is a necessary concomitant. Here, the forbidden act cannot be avoided without avoiding its necessary concomitant, and the obligatory act cannot be performed without performing its necessary concomitant.
This is comparable to a physician forbidding someone to drink a poisoned beverage when the cup containing it cannot be distinguished from another cup. The patient must avoid both cups, although the harm lies in only one of them. Thus, if someone ate both carrion and properly slaughtered meat, he would be punished for eating the carrion, just as if he had eaten it alone. Eating the properly slaughtered meat would not increase his punishment. By contrast, someone who ate two animals that had died without lawful slaughter would be punished more severely than someone who ate only one of them.
Once this is understood, Allah Most High’s words:
“And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth”
[al-Baqarah: 42]
prohibit both acts. The second necessarily follows from the first and is itself intended by the prohibition. Whoever mixes truth with falsehood conceals the truth, and he is punished both for mixing truth with falsehood and for concealing the truth.
It cannot therefore be said: “The prohibition applies only to combining the two.” If that were correct, merely concealing the truth would not warrant censure, nor would merely mixing truth with falsehood. But that is not the case. By concealing the clear proofs and guidance Allah revealed after He had made them clear to people, the People of the Book deserve punishment, according to the consensus of Muslims. The same applies to their mixing the truth Allah revealed with falsehood