the others; yet removing hair and trimming nails should be classed with wearing clothing and using perfume, not with killing game. This is the sounder view.

The fourth opinion is that someone who kills game by mistake is not liable for it. This is one report from Ahmad, and scholars extended this ruling to hair and nails with even greater reason. Consistently applying this principle also means that a fasting person who eats, drinks, or has intercourse forgetfully or by mistake is not required to make up the fast. This is the position of a group of earlier and later scholars.

Some scholars, such as Mālik, hold that both forgetfulness and mistake invalidate the fast. Abū Hanīfah said that this is what analogy dictates, but he departed from it in cases of forgetfulness because of the hadith of Abū Hurayrah. Others hold that forgetfulness does not invalidate the fast, whereas mistake does. This is the position of Abū Hanīfah, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad. Abū Hanīfah thus treated forgetfulness as a case warranting juristic preference. The followers of al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad, however, said that forgetfulness does not invalidate the fast because it cannot be guarded against, unlike mistake: a person can refrain from breaking the fast until certain that the sun has set, and can abstain from eating and drinking when unsure whether dawn has broken.

This distinction is weak; indeed, the reverse is true. The Sunnah for a fasting person is to hasten the breaking of the fast and delay the predawn meal. When the sky is completely overcast, certainty admitting of no doubt cannot be attained until such a long time has elapsed that the Maghrib prayer is missed