Tell them (O Muhammad!): 'I do not find in what has been revealed to me anything forbidden for anyone who wants to eat unless it is carrion, outpoured blood and the flesh of swine, all of which is unclean; or that which is profane having been slaughtered in a name other than that of Allah. But whosoever is constrained to it by necessity - neither desiring to disobey nor exceeding the limit of necessity - your Lord is surely AllForgiving, All-Compassionate. 145 We forbade the Jews all animals with claws and the fat of sheep [and goats] and oxen, except what is on their backs and in their intestines and what adheres to their bones. That is the penalty We imposed on them for their disobedience. And We assuredly are true to Our word. 146 So if they deny you, [O Muhammad], say, "Your Lord is the possessor of vast mercy; but His punishment cannot be repelled from the people who are criminals." 147 THOSE who are bent on ascribing divinity to aught beside God will say: "Had God so willed, we would not have ascribed divinity to aught but Him, nor would our forefathers [have done so]; and neither would we have declared as forbidden anything [that He has allowed]." Even so did those who lived before them give the lie to the truth - until they came to taste Our punishment! Say: "Have you any [certain] knowledge which you could proffer to us? You follow but [other people's] conjectures, and you yourselves do nothing but guess." 148 Say thou: with Allah resteth the argument evident. Wherefore, had He so willed, He would have guided you all. 149 Say: "Bring forward your witnesses to prove that Allah did forbid so and so." If they bring such witnesses, be not thou amongst them: Nor follow thou the vain desires of such as treat our signs as falsehoods, and such as believe not in the Hereafter: for they hold others as equal with their Guardian-Lord. 150