5. Al-Maaida

Satan desires only to precipitate enmity and hatred between you through wine and games of chance when you partake of them because of the evil and discord that result therefrom; and to bar you by your being preoccupied with them from the remembrance of God and from prayer — He has specifically mentioned it prayer so as to magnify it. So will you then desist? from partaking of them? In other words Desist!

And obey God and obey the Messenger and beware of disobedient acts; but if you turn away from obedience then know that Our Messenger’s duty is only to proclaim plainly to convey clearly the Message — your requital falls on Us.

Those who believe and perform righteous deeds are not at fault in what they may have consumed of wine and indulged in of gambling before the prohibition so long as they fear the forbidden things and believed and performed righteous deeds and then were God-fearing and believed and then adhered to fear of God and belief and then were God-fearing and virtuous in deeds; God loves the virtuous meaning that He will reward them.

O you who believe God will surely try you He will surely test you with some game which He releases to you the smaller of which will be caught by your hands and the larger of which by your lances this was in the plain of al-Hudaybiyya; while they were in the state of pilgrimage inviolability beasts and birds would flock to their caravans; so that God may know through knowledge outwardly manifested who fears Him in the Unseen bi’l-ghayb is a circumstantial qualifier in other words while He is absent to the eyes one who does not see Him but nonetheless avoids hunting game. Whoever transgresses thereafter after that prohibition against it and hunts his shall be a painful chastisement.

O you who believe do not slay game while you are in the state of pilgrimage inviolability for the hajj or the ‘umra; whoever of you slays it wilfully then the compensation shall be read fa-jazā’un ‘then the compensation shall be’ followed by a nominative mithlu ‘the like of’ that is to say a compensation is incumbent on him and that is the equivalent of what he has slain of flocks in other words a similar creature a variant reading has an annexation construction for jazā’ ‘compensation’ sc. fa-jazā’u mithli ‘then the compensation of’ to be judged that is the equivalent is to be judged by two just men among you both possessing astuteness with which they are able to identify the nearest animal in equivalence to it the slain animal. Ibn ‘Abbās ‘Umar and ‘Alī may God be pleased with them all adjudged a beast of sacrifice as redemption for an ostrich slain; Ibn ‘Abbās and Abū ‘Ubayda adjudged a cow as redemption for wildebeest or wild ass; ‘Abd Allāh Ibn ‘Umar and ‘Abd al-Rahmān Ibn ‘Awf a sheep for a gazelle and as Ibn ‘Abbās ‘Umar and others did a sheep also as a redemption for slaying pigeons because they pigeons resemble these sheep in taking scoops of water when drinking; an offering hadyan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to jazā’ ‘compensation’ to reach the Ka‘ba that is to be taken into the Sanctuary sacrificed there and given as a voluntary offering to its needy residents and it cannot be sacrificed wherever else it may be bāligha l-ka‘ba ‘to reach the Ka‘ba’ is in the accusative because it is an adjectival qualification of what precedes even if it stands as an annexation since such an annexation is only morphological and not valid as a grammatical characterisation; if there is no equivalent beast of flock for the game slain as in the case of a small bird or locusts then the person is obliged to compensate with equivalent value. Or it is incumbent on him to make an expiation other than compensation and if he should find the means then this expiation is food for the poor food to be taken from the principal food of the town equivalent to the value of the compensation being one mudd measure for each poor person a variant reading has kaffāra ‘expiation’ in an annexation with the following noun sc.

Permitted to you O people be you in pilgrimage inviolability or not is the game of the sea for consumption and it is what can only live in the sea such as fish but not what is able to live both in the sea and on land such as crabs; and food from it what it casts out that is dead is a provision for you for you to consume and for the wayfarers the travellers among you to take as their provisions; but forbidden to you is the hunting of game on the land and this consists of those edible beasts that live on it; do not hunt them so long as you remain in pilgrimage inviolability if it is caught by one not in pilgrimage inviolability then it is permissible for a person in pilgrimage inviolability to consume it as is clarified in the Sunna; and fear God to whom you shall be gathered.

God has appointed the Ka‘ba the Sacred inviolable House as an enduring institution for mankind an institution by which their religious affair is sustained through pilgrimage to it as is their this-worldly affair on account of the security guaranteed for those who enter it and the fact that they are not interfered with and because all manner of fruits are brought to it a variant reading for qiyāman has qiyaman ‘always standing’ as the verbal noun from 1st form qāma ‘to remain standing’ without defectiveness of the middle radical; and the sacred month meaning the sacred months of Dhū’l-Qa‘da Dhū’l-Hijja Muharram and Rajab instituted for them to be secure from fighting during them; the offering and the garlands instituted for their owner so that he does not suffer any interference; that mentioned appointment is so that you may know that God knows all that is in the heavens and in the earth and that God has knowledge of all things thus that appointing of His in order to secure benefits for you and to ward off harm from you before such things came to pass testifies to His knowledge of all that is in existence and all that will be.

Know that God is severe in punishment of His enemies and that God is Forgiving to His friends Merciful to them.

The duty of the Messenger is only to convey the Message to you; and God knows what you reveal what deeds you manifest and what you hide and what of these you conceal and He will requite you for it.