On Abū Ḥanīfah’s own methodological principle he ought to have disallowed it, for he forbids analogy in matters of expiation. Yet no one disputes that the legal designation applies, because the Exalted says:
“Have they not seen that We have made a sanctuary secure while people are being carried off all around them?” (Q 29:67),
and the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said, “Allah declared Mecca inviolable on the day He created the heavens and the earth.”
As for their disagreement about a person who kills game and then eats it—does he owe one compensation or two?—the reason lies in whether eating it constitutes a second transgression distinct from the act of killing or not; and if it is another transgression, is it equal in gravity to the first or not? All agree that if he eats it, he has sinned.
The discussion of the expiation for killing game comprises four pillars: identifying what is due, identifying who owes it, identifying the act that incurs it, and identifying the place where it must be discharged. Most of these categories have already been treated; two issues remain:
- the points of disagreement over some of the required equivalents for certain types of game, and
- which creatures are classed as game and which are not.
We must now address what is left. Among the foundational precedents in this chapter is the report that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ruled that for a hyena the compensation is a ram, for a gazelle a she-goat, for a hare a young she-goat, and for a jerboa a kid.
The jerboa is a small four-footed animal with a tail; it chews the cud like a sheep and is one of the ruminants. In scholarly usage an ʿanz is a goat that has borne young or reached that age. Both the jafrah and the ʿanaq are goats: the jafrah is one that grazes and no longer needs its mother’s milk, while the ʿanaq is—according to one view—slightly older than the jafrah, and according to another, slightly younger.
Mālik dissented from this report. Concerning the hare and the jerboa he held that they are not ransomed except with an animal fit for sacrifice, namely a jadhaʿ or older from sheep, or a thaniyy or older from camels or cattle. His proof is the verse: “as a sacrificial offering that is to reach the Kaʿbah” (Q 5:95).
The jurists agree that anyone who obligates himself to present a sacrificial animal is not discharged by less than a jadhaʿ or older of sheep, or a thaniyy of any other species. According to Mālik, the rule for the young of game is the same as for the adults.
Al-Shāfiʿī said: the young of game are compensated by the young of livestock, and the adults by the adults. This is reported from ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, and Ibn Masʿūd, and his argument is that this is the true equivalence. Thus, in his view, the adult ostrich requires a mature camel, whereas a juvenile ostrich requires a young camel. Abū Ḥanīfah, for his part, remains on his principle of monetary valuation.
They also differed over the pigeons of Mecca and elsewhere. Mālik said: for a Meccan pigeon a sheep is due, whereas for pigeons outside the Sanctuary the liability is a discretionary valuation. Ibn al-Qāsim expressed two opinions regarding pigeons within the Haram but outside Mecca: at one time he said they require a sheep, like the pigeons of Mecca; at another he said they require only a discretionary valuation, like the pigeons of non-sacred territory.
Al-Shāfiʿī held that for every pigeon within the Haram a sheep is due, and for a pigeon outside the Haram its market value. Dāwūd maintained that any creature that has no counterpart among game carries no compensation—except for the pigeon, in which case a sheep is required, for he perhaps thought