Chapter: The Ruling on Compensation for Game

Whenever a pilgrim in the state of iḥrām kills game, he must pay its compensation. Game subject to compensation falls into two categories—beasts and birds. A beast is compensated by its counterpart among livestock: for an ostrich the substitute is a camel; for a wild ass or a wild cow, a cow; for a gazelle, a sheep.

According to Mālik, the minimum that satisfies the requirement is “whatever can readily be obtained as hady (a sacrificial offering),” meaning an animal that would qualify for the ʿĪd sacrifice: a jadhaʿ (one-year-old) sheep, or a thaniyy (two-year-old) of any other species. If the game’s value does not reach that level, the expiation becomes either feeding the poor or fasting.

With young game Mālik rules exactly as he does with mature animals; nothing, in his view, may be ransomed with an ʿanāq (a young she-goat) or a jufrah (a weaned kid). Mālik said: “That is like blood money (diyah); for both the small and the large the amount is the same.” The author comments: In my opinion this statement conflicts with his own foundational principle, for compensation in his school is an expiation (kaffārah), not diyah. That is why, when several people jointly kill a single animal, he requires each one of them to pay the full compensation—precisely the procedure of a kaffārah, where the same obligation applies to large and small alike, rather than that of diyah.

For the desert lizard (ḍabb) and the jerboa (yarbūʿ) he fixes their monetary value to be given in food, and some scholars of Medina disagreed with him on this point.