of the disbelievers other than Jews and Christians—are all the same: their slaughter is unlawful, and the meat of an animal killed by a drunkard or by one who lacks mental capacity is not to be eaten. Some have maintained that this is merely disliked and does not reach the level of prohibition attached to the slaughter of an apostate.

Anyone who is able to perform the slaughter and does so in the prescribed manner—male or female, adult or minor—may lawfully slaughter provided he or she is a Muslim or a member of the People of the Scripture. Even so, it is recommended that only someone whose religious state is commendable be allowed to slaughter, and a Muslim’s hand is better and more fitting than that of a Jew or a Christian. A sacrificial offering (nusuk) may be slaughtered only by a Muslim.

If, nonetheless, a Jew or Christian were to slaughter the sacrificial animal, the jurists have differed: the authoritative position of the school is that it is invalid, although Ashhab deemed it permissible. We have already set out the ruling on what a pilgrim in a state of consecration (muḥrim) slaughters in the Book of Pilgrimage.

If a person whose slaughter is ordinarily acceptable oversteps his bounds and slaughters an animal he does not own—such as a thief or a usurper—the meat is not forbidden to eat, but he is liable for compensation. One view is that he must cover the loss in value caused by the slaughter; another holds that the owner of the stolen or seized animal is given a choice: he may either claim its full value as though it were alive and take the slaughtered carcass, or demand compensation only for the loss incurred by the slaughter and take back the carcass itself.