if it turns into vinegar, how can it be impure?” Others said: “If something is added to it, that substance first becomes impure, and then makes the vinegar impure in turn. This differs from the case where nothing is added, for then nothing causes it to become impure.”

Those who uphold the stronger opinion said:

The vinegar maker’s deliberate intention to turn it into vinegar is what renders it impure. He has been forbidden to keep it and commanded to pour it away; thus, by deliberately undertaking its conversion into vinegar, he has committed a forbidden act. At most, converting it into vinegar is comparable to slaughtering an animal. Something forbidden does not become lawful through a prohibited act, for disobedience cannot be a means of obtaining blessing and mercy.

An animal is forbidden to eat before slaughter and becomes permissible only through slaughter. Accordingly, if someone slaughters it in a prohibited manner—for example, by cutting somewhere other than the throat or the hollow at its base despite being able to slaughter it there, by acting without intending its ritual slaughter, or by instructing an idolater or a Magian to slaughter it, or something similar—it does not become permissible. Likewise, game killed by someone in ihrām (pilgrimage consecration) is not deemed validly slaughtered. Thus, the very same thing may be pure and lawful in one circumstance, yet forbidden and impure in another.

Sometimes this depends on who performs the act, as in the distinction between a person belonging to the People of the Book and an idolater. Sometimes it depends on the act itself, as in the distinction between slaughtering with a sharp instrument and slaughtering by other means. Sometimes it depends on the subject of the act and other considerations, as in the distinction between manumission and other acts. Sometimes it depends on the intention of the person acting, as in the distinction between intending to slaughter an animal ritually and merely intending to kill it. Indeed, according to Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad, if someone not in ihrām slaughters game, it is permissible for someone not in ihrām, but not for someone in ihrām. Thus, it is lawful and pure for the former