The Feast (Al-Maa 'edah)
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
۞ O believers, fulfil your bonds. Permitted to you is the beast of the flocks, except that which is now recited to you, so that you deem not game permitted to be hunted when you are in pilgrim sanctity. God decrees whatsoever He desires. 1 O People who Believe! Do not make lawful the symbols of Allah nor the sacred months nor the sacrificial animals sent to Sacred Territory (around Mecca) nor the animals marked with garlands, nor the lives and wealth of those travelling towards the Sacred House (Kaa’bah) seeking the munificence and pleasure of their Lord; and when you have completed the pilgrimage, you may hunt; and let not the enmity of the people who had stopped you from going to the Sacred Mosque tempt you to do injustice; and help one another in righteousness and piety – and do not help one another in sin and injustice – and keep fearing Allah; indeed Allah’s punishment is severe. 2 Forbidden to you are carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, the animal slaughtered in any name other than Allah's, the animal which has either been strangled, killed by blows, has died of a fall, by goring or that devoured by a beast of prey - unless it be that which you yourselves might have slaughtered while it was still alive - and that which was slaughtered at the altars. - You are also forbidden to seek knowledge of your fate by divining arrows. All these are sinful acts. This day the unbelievers have fully despaired of your religion. Do not fear them; but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion, and have bestowed upon you My bounty in full measure, and have been pleased to assign for you Islam as your religion. (Follow, then, the lawful and unlawful bounds enjoined upon you.) As for he who is driven by hunger, without being wilfully inclined to sin, surely Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Compassionate. 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 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