The Feast (Al-Maa 'edah)
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
۞ O People who Believe! Fulfil your words (agreements); the mute animals are made lawful for you (to eat) except what will be declared to you after this, but do not assume hunting as lawful when you are on the pilgrimage; indeed Allah commands whatever He wills. 1 Believers, do not violate the rites of Allah, or the sacred month, or the offerings, or (those hung with) necklaces, nor those whose aim is to the Sacred House seeking from their Lord bounty and pleasure. Once your pilgrimage has ended, you are free to hunt. Do not allow your hatred for a nation who would bar you from the Holy Mosque to lead you to transgress. And cooperate in righteousness and warding off (evil), and do not cooperate in sinfulness and transgression. Have fear of Allah, for Allah is Stern in retribution. 2 You are forbidden carrion, blood and pork; and any flesh over which the name of any other than God is invoked; and any creature which has been strangled, or killed by a blow or in a fall, or has been gored to death or half-eaten by a wild animal, saving that which you make lawful [by slaughtering properly while it was still alive] and what has been slaughtered at an altar. You are forbidden to make the division of [meat] by means of divining arrows: that is sinful conduct. Those who deny the truth have this day despaired of ever harming your religion. So do not fear them. Fear Me. Today I have completed your religion for you and completed My blessing upon you. I have chosen for you Islam as your religion. But if anyone is forced by hunger to eat something which is forbidden, not intending to commit a sin, he will find God forgiving and merciful. 3 They will ask thee as to what is lawful to them. Say: "Lawful to you are all the good things of life." And as for those hunting animals which you train by imparting to them something of the knowledge that God has imparted to yourselves - eat of what they seize for you, but mention God's name over it and remain conscious of God: verily, God is swift in reckoning. 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