(3) “Forbidden to you are carrion, blood, swine flesh, that over which a name other than Allah has been invoked, animals killed by strangling, a violent blow, a fall, or by being gored, and those partly eaten by a predator—unless you slaughter them before they die—as well as animals sacrificed on stone altars and seeking decisions through divining arrows. All of that is disobedience. Today those who disbelieve have despaired of defeating your religion, so do not fear them; fear Me. Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and approved Islam as your religion. But whoever is compelled by extreme hunger, without inclining toward sin, then Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

This is what Allah referred us to in His words, “except what is recited to you.” Know that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, only prohibits things in order to safeguard His servants and protect them from the harm found in what is prohibited. He may make that harm clear to His servants, or He may not.

He informs us that He has forbidden “carrion.” ⦗220⦘ Carrion means anything that has died without being slaughtered in the prescribed manner. It is forbidden because it is harmful: the blood remains trapped within its body and flesh, making it harmful to whoever eats it. Moreover, animals often die from an illness that caused their death, and eating them is consequently harmful.

Dead locusts and fish are excepted from this, for they are lawful.

“And blood” means flowing blood, as specified in the other verse. “And swine flesh” encompasses every part of the animal. Allah singled it out from among all other vile predatory animals because a group among the Christians of the People of the Book claim that Allah made it lawful for them. Do not, therefore, be deceived by them; it is forbidden and is among the vile things.

“And that over which a name other than Allah has been invoked” means that the name of something other than Allah Most High was mentioned over it, such as idols, saints, celestial bodies, or any other created beings. Just as mentioning Allah Most High makes a slaughtered animal wholesome, mentioning another name over it renders it spiritually impure, because that constitutes associating partners with Allah Most High.

“And animals killed by strangling” means animals that die from being strangled by a hand or rope, or by inserting their heads into something narrow and being unable to withdraw them until they die.

“And animals killed by a violent blow” means those that die from being struck with a stick, stone, or piece of wood, or from something collapsing upon them, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

“And animals killed by a fall” means those that fall from a height, such as a mountain, wall, rooftop, or the like, and die as a result.

“And animals killed by being gored” means those that are gored by another animal and die.

“And those partly eaten by a predator,” such as a wolf, lion, or leopard, or by birds that prey upon game: if they die because a predator has eaten from them, they are not lawful.

His words, “unless you slaughter them before they die,” apply to all these cases: animals strangled, struck, killed by a fall, gored, or mauled by a predator. They are lawful if slaughtered while they still possess sufficient, stable life for the prescribed slaughter to take effect. The jurists therefore said, “If a predator or anything else tore out the animal’s entrails or severed its windpipe, the presence of life in it would be as though no life remained, since slaughtering it would serve no purpose.” [Some jurists considered nothing beyond the presence of life: if it was slaughtered while still alive, it became lawful even if its entrails had been torn out. This is the apparent meaning of the noble verse.] (1)

“And seeking decisions through divining arrows” means that seeking decisions through divining arrows was also forbidden to you. This involved seeking to discover what had been allotted and decreed for a person by means of three arrows used during the Age of Ignorance. One was inscribed, “Do it”; the second, “Do not do it”; and the third was blank, with nothing written on it.

When one of them intended to travel, marry, or undertake something similar, he would shuffle these arrows, which were equal in size, and then draw one. If the arrow inscribed “Do it” emerged, he proceeded with his undertaking. If the one inscribed “Do not do it” appeared, he refrained and did not proceed. If the blank arrow appeared, he repeated the process until one of the other two emerged, and then acted accordingly. Allah therefore forbade it (2) to them, both in this form and in all similar forms, and replaced it with seeking their Lord’s guidance in all their affairs.

“All of that is disobedience.” This refers to all the aforementioned prohibitions, which Allah forbade in order to safeguard His servants. They constitute disobedience—that is, departure from obedience to Him for obedience to Satan.

He then bestowed favor upon His servants by saying:

“... Today those who disbelieve have despaired of defeating your religion, so do not fear them; fear Me. Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and approved Islam as your religion. But whoever is compelled by extreme hunger, without inclining toward sin, then Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

The day referred to here is the Day of Arafah, when Allah perfected His religion, granted victory to His servant and Messenger, and utterly vanquished the polytheists, after they had eagerly sought and hoped to turn the believers away from their religion.

When they witnessed Islam’s might, triumph, and ascendancy, they utterly despaired of the believers ever returning to their religion and instead began to fear and dread them. Thus, in the year in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed the Farewell Pilgrimage—the tenth year—not a single polytheist performed Hajj, nor did anyone circumambulate the House naked.

For this reason, He said, “So do not fear them; fear Me.” That is, do not fear the polytheists, but fear Allah, who granted you victory over them, abandoned them to defeat, and turned their schemes against them.

“Today I have perfected your religion for you” by granting complete victory and perfecting its outward and inward laws, both its fundamentals and subsidiary matters. The Book and the Sunnah are therefore entirely sufficient for all the rulings of religion, both its fundamentals and subsidiary matters.

Anyone who makes the unwarranted claim that, in order to know their beliefs and rulings, people must have recourse to disciplines other than knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah—such as speculative theology and the like—is ignorant, and his claim is false. He has alleged that the religion cannot be complete without what he says and advocates. This is among the gravest forms of wrongdoing and of imputing ignorance to Allah and His Messenger.

“And completed My favor upon you,” both outwardly and inwardly, “and approved Islam as your religion.” That is, He chose and selected it as your religion, just as He chose you to follow it. Therefore, uphold it in gratitude to your Lord, and praise the One who has bestowed upon you the best, noblest, and most perfect of religions.

“But whoever is compelled”—that is, driven by necessity to eat something previously prohibited ⦗221⦘ in His words, “Forbidden to you are carrion”—“by extreme hunger,” meaning famine, “without inclining,” meaning leaning, “toward sin,” by neither eating until necessity compels him nor consuming more than is sufficient for him, “then Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.” He has permitted such a person to eat under these circumstances and has shown him mercy by allowing him what will sustain his body, without thereby causing any deficiency in his religion.