The Feast (Al-Maa 'edah)
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
۞ O YOU who have attained to faith! Be true to your covenants! Lawful to you is the [flesh of every] beast that feeds on plants, save what is mentioned to you [hereinafter]: but you are not allowed to hunt while you are in the state of pilgrimage. Behold, God ordains in accordance with His will. 1 Believers! Neither desecrate the symbols of (devotion to) Allah, nor the holy month, nor the animals of offering, nor the animals wearing collars indicating they are for sacrifice, nor ill-treat those who have set out for the Holy House seeking from their Lord His bounty and good pleasure. But once you are free from Pilgrimage obligations, you are free to hunt. Do not let your wrath against the people who have barred you from the Holy Mosque move you to commit undue transgressions; rather, help one another in acts of righteousness and piety, and do not help one another in sin and transgression. Fear Allah. Surely Allah is severe in retribution. 2 You are forbidden (to consume) the dead, blood and the flesh of swine; also flesh dedicated to any other than Allah, the flesh of strangled (animals) and of those beaten, that which is killed by falling, gored to death, mangled by beasts of prey, unless you find it (still alive) and slaughter it; also of animals sacrificed on stones (to idols). (You are forbidden) to seek division by the arrows, that is debauchery. Those who disbelieve have this day despaired of your religion. Do not fear them, but fear Me. This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favor to you. I have approved Islam to be your religion. (As for) he who does not intend to commit a sin but is constrained by hunger to eat of what is forbidden, then surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 3 They ask thee what is lawful to them (as food). Say: lawful unto you are (all) things good and pure: and what ye have taught your trained hunting animals (to catch) in the manner directed to you by Allah: eat what they catch for you, but pronounce the name of Allah over it: and fear Allah; for Allah is swift in taking account. 4 Today are allowed unto you all clean foods, and the meat of those vouchsafed the Book is allowable for you, and your meat is allowable for them as also are the wedded believing women and the wedded women of those vouchsafed the Book before you, when ye have given them their dowers, taking them in wedlock, neither fornicating, nor taking them as secret paramours. And who soever rejecteth the faith, his work will surely come to naught, and in the Hereafter he shall be of the losers. 5