The Feast (Al-Maa 'edah)
In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful
۞ Believers, stand by your contracts (and obligations). Of all animals, cattle has been made lawful for you as food with certain exceptions. Hunting is not lawful for you during ihram (a part of the rituals during pilgrimage). God decrees as He wills. 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 Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah, and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin - then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. 3 They ask you, [O Muhammad], what has been made lawful for them. Say, "Lawful for you are [all] good foods and [game caught by] what you have trained of hunting animals which you train as Allah has taught you. So eat of what they catch for you, and mention the name of Allah upon it, and fear Allah." Indeed, Allah is swift in account. 4 On this day all things that are clean have been made lawful for you; and made lawful for you is the food of the people of the Book, as your food is made lawful for them. And lawful are the chaste Muslim women, and the women of the people of the Book who are chaste, (for marriage) and not fornication or liaison, if you give them their dowries. Useless shall be rendered the acts of those who turn back on their faith, and they will be among the losers in the life to come. 5