“Eight pairs: a pair of sheep and a pair of goats. Say, ‘Has He forbidden the two males, or the two females, or what the wombs of the two females contain? Tell me with knowledge, if you are truthful.’” (143)

His saying, exalted is He: “And among livestock”—that is, He created among livestock—“those fit for carrying burdens,” namely every camel upon which loads may be carried, “and those for slaughter,” namely the young camels that cannot carry loads. “Eat of what Allah has provided for you, and do not follow Satan’s footsteps”: do not follow his path and traces in declaring crops and livestock forbidden. “Surely he is a clear enemy to you.”

He then explained the animals fit for carrying burdens and those for slaughter, saying: “Eight pairs.” This is in the accusative as an apposition to “those fit for carrying burdens and those for slaughter”; that is, He created among livestock eight pairs, or kinds. “A pair of sheep,” that is, the male and female. [Thus, the male is one member of a pair and the female] (1) another member of the pair. The Arabs call an individual a zawj (one of a pair) when it is inseparable from the other. Al-da’n refers to sheep, the wool-bearing kind of livestock; its male singular is da’in, its female singular da’ina, and its plural dawa’in. “And a pair of goats.” Ibn Kathir, Ibn Amir, and the people of Basra recited it as al-ma’az, with the letter ayn carrying a fathah, while the rest recited it with the ayn unvowelled. Both al-ma’z and al-ma’za are collective nouns with no