As for the young of game animals and the question of whether a jadhaʿ or a thaniyy suffices, Mālik follows the view reported from ʿUmar: for a hare the substitute is an ʿanāq (a young she-goat), and for a jerboa a jufrah (a weaned kid). For every type of pigeon the compensation is its market value—except the pigeons of Mecca, for each of which a sheep is required, following the practice of the early generations; the birds known as dibs and ghamrī are likewise classed as pigeons.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam reports from Mālik that a Meccan pigeon and its chicks each entail a sheep, and the same ruling applies to the pigeons of the Sanctuary (ḥaram). Pigeons outside the Sanctuary are subject to a discretionary appraisal (ḥukūmah). He also said: Anyone who enters iḥrām in Mecca, then shuts his house door on pigeons so that they die, must give a sheep for every chick.
For an ostrich egg Mālik sets the compensation at one-tenth of one-eighth of the blood money (diyah), and for an egg of a Meccan pigeon one-tenth of the price of a sheep. Most jurists, however, hold that for the egg of any bird one simply pays its monetary value.
Whoever kills game repeatedly must pay its compensation each time. If a hunter wounds an animal—severing a leg, an arm, or another limb—and the animal survives, recovers, and rejoins its kind, nothing is due. Some say he is liable for compensation proportional to the loss, but the first opinion is Mālik’s.
If the animal escapes and its fate is unknown, he must pay compensation. Likewise, if the wounded game is crippled and does not rejoin its herd, or if the hunter abandons it out of fear, full compensation is required.
The expiation for hunting is a matter of choice, not a fixed sequence. Two just arbiters judge the killer of the game and allow him to choose: sacrifice, feeding, or fasting. Whatever he selects, they impose—whether he is wealthy or poor. If no arbiters convene, he still has the same choice.
If he chooses to offer a sacrificial animal, they rule according to the established Sunnah and do not depart from it. If he prefers the food option, they assess the game’s value in food at the going price where it was taken; if that is unavailable, then at the rate of the nearest town, feeding each poor person one mudd as measured by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. And if he chooses fasting