On the rulings of compensation for hunted game
We therefore say:
The Muslims are unanimously agreed that the Almighty’s words,
“O you who have believed, do not kill game while you are in a state of ihram. Whoever of you kills it deliberately, the recompense is an equivalent from domesticated livestock, to be determined by two just men from among you, as an offering brought to the Kaʿbah; or, by way of expiation, feeding the poor, or the equivalent of that in fasting” (al-Māʾidah 5:95),
constitute a definitive, unambiguous verse. They nevertheless disagreed over its detailed rulings, and over what may or may not be analogically tied to it.
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Is what becomes incumbent for killing game its equivalent animal or its monetary value?
• The majority maintain that the obligation is an equivalent animal.
• Abū Ḥanīfah holds that the offender may choose between paying the animal’s market value or purchasing its equivalent. -
Should fresh adjudication be made in cases whose compensation had already been settled by the early Companions—such as their rulings that an ostrich entails a camel, a gazelle a sheep, and a wild cow a domestic cow?
• Mālik says new judgment is required in every instance, and Abū Ḥanīfah concurs.
• al-Shāfiʿī allows one to suffice with the earlier Companions’ determinations wherever they exist. -
Does the verse confer an option or prescribe a sequence?
• Mālik—and likewise Abū Ḥanīfah—read it as offering a choice, meaning the two arbiters grant the liable person discretion.
• Zufar reads it as sequential. -
When the offender opts for feeding, is the valuation based on the game itself or on its equivalent?
• Mālik: on the game.
• al-Shāfiʿī: on the equivalent. -
All agree, in general, on calculating the fasting in proportion to the food, though they diverged in the details:
• Mālik (followed by al-Shāfiʿī and the scholars of the Ḥijāz) rules one day of fasting for every mudd of food—the amount given to each poor person.
• The scholars of Kūfah require one day for every two mudds—their measure for a single poor person’s allotment. -
If the game is killed unintentionally, is compensation due?
• The majority say it is.
• The Ẓāhirīs say it is not. -
When several people jointly kill the game:
• Mālik, Sufyān al-Thawrī, and others hold that each muhrim must pay a full compensation.
• al-Shāfiʿī rules that one compensation suffices for them all.
• Abū Ḥanīfah distinguishes: if the killers are in ihram, each owes a full recompense; if they are not in ihram but the act occurs inside the Sanctuary, only one recompense is due collectively. -
May one of the two arbiters be the very person who killed the game?
• Mālik: not permissible.
• al-Shāfiʿī: permissible.
• Abū Ḥanīfah’s associates reported both positions. -
Where must the food be distributed?
• Mālik: in the very place where the game was taken, provided food is available there; otherwise, in the nearest locality.
• Abū Ḥanīfah: wherever the offender chooses to feed.