Al-Bukhārī devoted special care to this question, citing the prohibition through several sound chains of transmission. Declaring the meat unlawful is the position of the vast majority of scholars, early and later, and it is the view of the four Imams. Some of the first-generation scholars—among them Ibn ʿAbbās—held it to be permissible, and they offered various explanations for the reports that forbid it. It was said: because the animals served as mounts and beasts of burden; it was said: because the booty had not yet been subjected to the khums; and it was said: because they fed on filth, that is, they were jallālah.

The correct view, however, is that the prohibition applies to the animal itself. In the authentic report (1) a herald of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ announced: “Allah and His Messenger forbid you to eat the flesh of donkeys, for it is impurity; so overturn the pots while the meat is still boiling in them” (2). A fuller treatment of this ruling appears in the book al-Aḥkām.

Ibn Isḥāq (3) said: Sallām ibn Kirkirah related to me, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh—though Jābir did not witness Khaybar—that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade the people to eat donkey meat, he granted them permission to eat horse meat. The basis of this report is firmly established in the two Ṣaḥīḥs (4) through the narration of Ḥafad ibn Zayd, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, from Jābir—may Allah be pleased with him—who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ, on the day of Khaybar, forbade the flesh of donkeys and permitted that of horses.” This is al-Bukhārī’s wording.

Ibn Isḥāq (5) also narrated to us, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Makḥūl, that the Prophet ﷺ on that day forbade four things: approaching pregnant captive women, eating the meat of domesticated donkeys, eating the flesh of any predatory animal with fangs, and selling war booty before it has been divided. This report is mursal.

Ibn Isḥāq further said: Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb told me, from Abū Marzūq, the freedman of Tujīb, from Ḥanash al-Ṣanʿānī, who said: We campaigned with Ruwayfiʿ ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī in the West, where he captured a village called Jarbah. He then addressed us, saying: “People, I will only say among you what I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say among us on the day of Khaybar. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood among us and said:

‘It is not lawful for a man who believes in Allah and the Last Day to water another man’s crop with his own seed’—meaning to have intercourse