Both of these ḥadīths have been included by all the major compilers of sound collections.
As for the implements with which game is taken, the jurists are in general agreement concerning some of them, while they disagree about others and about the conditions attached to their use. These implements fall under three headings:
- A predatory animal,
- A sharp-edged weapon, and
- A heavy, blunting instrument.
Concerning the sharp-edged weapon, they unanimously allow its use—such as spears, swords, and arrows—because these are explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an and Sunnah. The same ruling applies to anything that functions like them by piercing the quarry, with the exception of those items over which they disputed when discussing the slaughter of domestic animals, namely the tooth, the claw, and the bone; their disagreement on that point has already been stated and need not be repeated here.
With respect to the heavy, blunting instrument, such as the miʿrāḍ (throwing stick) or a stone, the scholars differ. Some permit only that which is reached while still alive so that the required slaughter can be performed; others permit it without restriction; while a third group distinguishes between a blow that kills by mere force and a strike that kills because its edge pierces the animal’s body—allowing the latter and forbidding the former.
This last view is that of the leading jurists of the Muslim lands—al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad, al-Thawrī, and many others—and it returns to the principle that no valid slaughter exists except by means of a sharp instrument.
The basis of their disagreement lies in the way foundational principles in this chapter conflict with one another, as well as in how transmitted reports interact with those principles. One principle is that an animal beaten to death (al-waqīdh) is forbidden by the Qur’an and by consensus; another is that wounding beyond recovery (al-ʿaqr) constitutes the legal slaughter of game. Whoever regards what the miʿrāḍ kills as waqīdh prohibits it absolutely; whoever sees it as a form of ʿaqr specific to hunting—and therefore not subject to the ruling on waqīdh—permits it unconditionally; and whoever differentiates between a strike that pierces and one that does not reverts to the ḥadīth of ʿAdiyy ibn Ḥātim mentioned earlier, and that is the correct position.
As for the predatory animal, the points of agreement and disagreement concern both species and qualifying conditions. With regard to species, the one upon which there is consensus is the dog—except for the jet-black dog, which was disliked by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, and Qatādah. Aḥmad said, “I know of no one who grants a concession for it when it is jet-black,” and the same was reported from Isḥāq. The majority, however, hold that its catch is permissible if the dog is trained.
The reason for their dispute is the tension between analogy and a general text. The general import of the verse, “and what you train of hunting animals as trainers of dogs” (al-Māʾidah 5:4), requires that all dogs be treated alike; whereas the Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—command to kill the jet-black dog leads, by analogy, to the view that hunting with it is invalid for those who maintain that a prohibition renders the act defective.
Regarding other kinds of predators—whether birds of prey or land-going hunters—they also disagreed. Some scholars, such as Ibn Shabān, and, indeed, Mālik and his companions and the jurists of the great cities, allowed every predator that can be trained, even a cat. This is also reported from Ibn ʿAbbās; that is, any creature capable of being trained becomes a valid means of legally slaughtering game.
Others said: no—