a healthy animal. Carrion is mentioned at the beginning of the verse, while there would be no point in mentioning a healthy animal, since its ruling presents no difficulty. This supports our interpretation and our view that animals struck, and the other categories mentioned alongside them, mean those that have reached this condition. There is disagreement on this matter, which we shall discuss.

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There is disagreement concerning Allah’s words—Mighty and Majestic is He—in this verse, “except those you slaughter” [al-Mā’idah: 3]: is this a connected or a disconnected exception? A connected exception excludes from a general statement something included within the scope of its wording. An example is someone saying, “I saw the sons of so-and-so, except ‘Amr, who is one of them.” Another is His saying, Exalted is He:

“He remained among them for a thousand years, except fifty years.” [al-‘Ankabūt: 14]

Examples of this are numerous. A disconnected exception, by contrast, excludes nothing included within the wording of the preceding statement. An example is someone saying, “I fed the people, except their riding animals.” Al-Nābighah said:

“There is no one at the deserted dwelling, except the female ibex.”

Yet female ibex are not included in “anyone.” Another example is Allah’s saying—Mighty and Majestic is He:

“It is not for a believer to kill a believer except by mistake.” [al-Nisā’: 92]

For one cannot properly say of an accidental act that a person is permitted to do it. Another is His saying, Exalted is He:

“Tā Hā. We have not sent down the Quran to you to cause you distress” [Tā Hā: 1–2], “but as a reminder for those who fear Allah.” [Tā Hā: 3]

This exception is understood in the sense of “but,” as though He said: “We have not sent down the Quran to you to cause you distress, but as a reminder for those who fear Allah.”

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Those who hold that the exception in His saying, Exalted is He, “except those you slaughter” [al-Mā’idah: 3], is connected permit the lawful slaughter of an animal that has been strangled, and the other categories mentioned alongside it, even if what has befallen it has brought it to a hopeless condition, provided that it has not caused lethal damage to a vital organ. This is the position of Ibn al-Qāsim and what he transmitted from Mālik in al-Mudawwanah and al-‘Utbiyyah. It is also one of the two reports transmitted by Ashhab from him in al-‘Utbiyyah.

Those who hold that it is a disconnected exception do not permit its lawful slaughter once what has befallen it has brought it to a hopeless condition, even if no vital organ has sustained lethal damage. They explain the passage as meaning: “Rather, whatever you slaughter other than these