and likewise, if a sacrificial offering or an Eid sacrifice designated by vow is held to have passed out of its owner’s ownership, he still has authority to slaughter it and distribute its meat. He similarly has authority to exchange it for another. This is comparable to someone destroying it: he would receive its monetary value and purchase a replacement with it, even though he did not own it. Thus, its passing out of his ownership does not preclude his exercising authority over it under Islamic law.

Asking, in this and similar cases, “Does its owner own it or not?” is like asking: “Can a slave own property? Can those at war with the Muslims acquire ownership of Muslim property? Does the beneficiary of an endowment own the endowed property?” Disagreement over these questions arose only because ownership was assumed to be a single category whose various forms were all alike. This is not so. Rather, ownership is legally conferred power. The Lawgiver may permit a person one kind of disposal but not another, granting him authority to undertake one act but not another. He thus possesses a particular form of ownership, unlike that of an heir. Nor is an heir’s ownership identical in every respect to that of a purchaser; the two may differ. Likewise, ownership of plunder, war booty, and similar property may differ from ownership acquired through purchase or inheritance.

Thus, if someone says, “He owns the designated Eid sacrifice,” meaning that he owns it as he owns something he has purchased—so that he may sell it and keep its price, give it to whomever he wishes, and leave it to be inherited as property—this is not the case. Likewise, if saying that it has passed out of his ownership means that his authority to dispose of it has ceased, as authority to dispose of property ceases through enslavement or sale, this too is not the case. Rather, he has a particular form of ownership over it: the right to safeguard it, slaughter it, distribute its meat, give some as gifts and charity, and eat from it. These rights over his sacrifice belong to him and to no one else.