The Feast (Al-Maa 'edah)
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Most Merciful
۞ O ye who believe! Fulfil your indentures. The beast of cattle is made lawful unto you (for food) except that which is announced unto you (herein), game being unlawful when ye are on the pilgrimage. Lo! Allah ordaineth that which pleaseth Him. 1 O believers, profane not God's waymarks nor the holy month, neither the offering, nor the necklaces, nor those repairing to the Holy House seeking from their Lord bounty and good pleasure. But when you have quit your pilgrim sanctity, then hunt for game. Let not detestation for a people who barred you from the Holy Mosque move you to commit aggression. Help one another to piety and godfearing; do not help each other to sin and enmity. And fear God; surely God is terrible in retribution. 2 Forbidden unto you are the deadmeat, and blood, and the flesh of the swine, and that over which is invoked the name of other than Allah, and the strangled, and the felled, and the tumbled, and the gored, and that which wild animals have devoured, unless ye have cleansed, and that which hath been slaughtered on the altars, and that ye seek a division by means of the divining arrows: all that is an abomination. Today those who disbelieve have despaired of your religion; wherefore fear them not, and fear Me. Today I have perfected for you your religion, and have completed My favour upon you, and am well-pleased with Islam as your religion. Then whosoever is driven to extreme hunger not inclining to sin, verily then Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 3 They ask you what is lawful for them. Say: "All things are lawful for you that are clean, and what the trained hunting animals take for you as you have trained then, in the light of God's teachings, but read over them the name of God, and fear (straying from the path of) God, for God is swift in the reckoning." 4 The good things have this day been made lawful to you. The food of those to whom the Book was given is lawful to you, and your food is lawful to them. Lawful to you (in marriage) are the free believing women and the free women from among those who were given the Book before you, provided that you give them their dowries in marriage, neither committing fornication nor taking them as mistresses. Whosoever denies the belief, his labors will be annulled. In the Everlasting Life he is of the losers. 5