[Book of Hunting]
[First Chapter: On the Ruling of Hunting and the Animals to Which Hunting Applies]
In its basic layout this Book, too, consists of four chapters:
- On the ruling of hunting and the animals that may be hunted.
- On the means by which hunting is carried out.
- On the manner of slaughtering game and the conditions required for a valid slaughter.
- On those whose hunt is legally acceptable.
The First Chapter: On the ruling of hunting and its subject.
With regard to the ruling, the majority of jurists hold that hunting is permissible, based on the words of the Exalted:
"Lawful to you is the game of the sea and its food as a provision for you and for travellers, while the game of the land is forbidden to you as long as you are in a state of ihram" (al-Māʾidah 5:96),
followed by His statement,
"And when you are released from ihram, then hunt" (al-Māʾidah 5:2).
The scholars agree that the command to hunt in this verse, coming after a prohibition, signifies permission, just as they agree concerning His saying,
"When the prayer is finished, disperse through the land and seek of Allah’s bounty" (al-Jumuʿah 62:10).
In other words, the intended sense is permissibility, because the command follows a prohibition—though they have differed over whether every command after a prohibition merely indicates permission or, by its original force, indicates obligation.
Mālik regarded as reprehensible any hunting undertaken for extravagance. Later Mālikīs offered further detail, concluding that for some people such hunting is obligatory, for others recommended, and for others disliked.
This sort of inquiry, however, digs deeply into analogical reasoning and departs from the explicit legal foundations; it therefore has no place in our present work, for our aim here is only to cite what is explicitly established in the Law, or what is very close to it.
As for the animals that may be hunted, there is consensus that they include marine creatures—namely fish and their varieties—and land animals whose flesh is lawful to eat and that are not domesticated.
They have differed, however, about a domesticated animal that has gone feral so that it cannot be captured, slaughtered, or sacrificed. Mālik said: it may not be eaten unless it is sacrificed in the prescribed manner for such animals—