9.'Carrion' signifies the animal which has died a natural death.
10. This refers to the practice of pronouncing the name of anyone or anything other than God and dedicating the animal, as an offering, to either a holy personage, god or goddess before slaughtering. (For details see Towards Understanding the Qur'an, vol. I, (Surah 2, n. 171.)
11. It is lawful to eat the flesh of an animal which may have suffered from any of the above-mentioned accidents providing it was still alive until slaughtered. This verse also makes it clear that the flesh of an animal becomes lawful only by slaughtering ritually, and that no other method of killing is valid. The words dhabh and dhakah belong to the technical terminology of Islam and denote slitting the throat so that the blood is completely drained from the animal's body. The disadvantage of killing an animal by either guillotine or strangulation is that the greater part of the blood remains within the body, and at various places it sticks to the flesh and forms congealed lumps. If an animal is slaughtered by slitting the throat, on the other hand, the connection between mind and body remains intact for a short while, with the result that the blood is thoroughly drained out from all the veins and the flesh becomes fully cleansed of blood. We have just come across the injunction prohibiting the eating of blood. So only that flesh which has been purged of blood is declared lawful.
12. The word nusub signifies all the places consecrated for offerings to others than the One True God, regardless of whether they are images of wood, stone or something else.
13. The division of objects of eating and drinking into lawful and unlawful
is based on their moral rather than their medicinal properties. God has left
matters relating to the physical world to be tackled by man's own effort and
striving. It is for man himself to discover by his own efforts which items of
food and drink provide him with healthy nourishment and which are useless and
harmful. The Law (Shari'ah) does not take upon itself to guide man in such matters.
Had it undertaken such a task, perhaps one of the first things for it to do
would have been to pronounce the prohibition of arsenic oxide. But one will
notice that the Qur'an and Hadith mention neither arsenic oxide nor other things
which either singly or jointly are fatal for man. The underlying considerations
of the Law with regard to the various items of eating and drinking are their
possible effects on man's morals and on the purity of his soul. This is in addition
to the judgements that the Law makes with regard to the various means adopted
by man in his quest for food - whether they are appropriate according to Islamic
standards or not. It is impossible for man to determine what is beneficial and
what is harmful for his morals; he has not been endowed with the capacities
needed to arrive at sound conclusions on these matters, and so he frequently
stumbles into error. Hence the Law undertakes to guide him in these matters
and these matters alone. Whatever has been prohibited by Islam has been prohibited
because of its bad effects on human morals, because of its repugnance to spiritual
purity, and because of its association with false beliefs. Things which have
been declared lawful have been so declared because they are untainted by these
evils.
It may be asked why God did not specify the considerations underlying the prohibition
of various things for this would have afforded us very valuable insights. In
reply, it must be pointed out that it is impossible for us to fully grasp such
considerations. The kind of questions we face are for instance: What are the
corrupting effects of the consumption of either blood or the flesh of swine
and carrion on our morals? The extent to which this corruption affects our morals,
and the way in which certain things affect our morals is a matter that we are
incapable of investigating, for we do not possess the means of weighing and
measuring the moral properties of various things. To mention some of these bad
effects would carry little weight with the sceptic, for how could he test the
soundness of statements on such questions? Hence, God considers faith rather
than man's own judgement as the main basis for observing the standards of lawfulness
and prohibition. Whoever is fully convinced that the Qur'an is the Book of God,
that the Prophet (peace be on him) was designated by Him, and that God is All-Knowing
and All-Wise, will necessarily commit himself to observe the restrictions enjoined
by God regardless of whether he is able to grasp the wisdom underlying them
or not. Whoever lacks this basic conviction will avoid only those evils which
are fully evident to human beings, and will remain a prey to all those which
have not yet become apparent but which in fact are intrinsically harmful.
14. The things which are prohibited in this verse fall into the following
categories:
(1) Polytheistic divination, which is a form of omen-seeking whereby knowledge
either about one's future or about matters beyond human perception, is sought
from gods and goddesses. The polytheists of Makka had consecrated the idol Hubal
in the Ka'bah for this purpose. Seven arrows had been placed at its altars and
on each of them different words and sentences had been inscribed. Whenever people
were faced with the question whether a certain course was wise or not, or they
wanted to trace something lost, or sought a judgement in a murder case, or had
other similar problems, they would approach the oracle of Hubal, present him
with an offering as his fee, and pray to Hubal to issue a verdict on the question
concerned. Then the oracle would draw arrows, and the inscription on the arrow
which fell to a person's lot was deemed to represent the verdict of Hubal.
(2) Superstitious divination, which has also been prohibited, means that instead
of deciding the problems of life in a rational way one should decide them on
fanciful grounds. Or it could mean deciding matters by arbitrary interpretation
of accidental events, or to have one's future prophesied by means which have
not been reasonably established as adequate for obtaining knowledge about the
future. This includes geomancy, astrology, fortune-telling and the numerous
other methods adopted to determine omens.
(3) Games of chance are also prohibited and include all those transactions in
which what one receives depends on chance and other purely accidental factors
rather than on rational considerations such as either due payment or recompense
for services rendered. This applies, for instance, to lotteries where the holder
of an arbitrarily-drawn number receives a huge amount of money which has been
obtained from thousands of other people. It also applies to crossword puzzles
were the award of prizes does not depend on the actual correctness of the solution
(since several correct solutions are possible) but on accidental conformity
with the particular solution which is arbitrarily chosen as the only correct
one by the sponsors of the puzzle. After prohibiting each of these three categories,
the only kind of lot-drawing which Islam permits is that which one resorts to
when obliged to make a decision either in favour of one of numerous permissible
options or in favour of one out of two or more equally legitimate claimants.
For instance, two persons have an equal claim over a thing which neither of
them is prepared to relinquish, and at the same time there is no reasonable
basis for preferring one to the other. In such a case, with the consent of the
claimants, the matter may be settled by drawing lots. The Prophet (peace be
on him) himself used to resort to drawing lots when he had to make a decision
between two equal claimants, and when preferring one of them would cause distress
and grievance to the other. (For such instances see Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad,
vol. 4, p. 373; Bukhari, 'Nikah', 97 and 'Shahadat', 30; Muslim, 'Fada'il al-Sahabah',
88; Ibn Majah, 'Ahkam', 20, etc. - Ed.)
15. 'This day', here, does not signify a particular day or specific date. It refers to that period of time when these verses were revealed. In our own usage, too, expressions like 'today' or 'this day' often have the sense of the 'present time'. 'This day the unbelievers have fully despaired of your religion' refers to the fact that the Muslims' religion had developed into a full-fledged system of life, reinforced by the authority and governmental power which it had acquired. The unbelievers who had hitherto resisted its establishment now despaired of destroying Islam and of forcing the believers back to their former state of Ignorance. The believers therefore no longer needed to fear men: they should fear God alone instead. Indeed, the Muslims were repeatedly asked to fear God, for they would not be treated lightly if they failed to carry out His commands, especially as there was no longer any justifiable excuse for such failure. If they still violated the law of God, there could be no basis for supposing that they did so under constraint: it must mean that they simply had no intention of obeying Him.
16. The 'perfection of religion' mentioned in this verse refers to making
it a self-sufficient system of belief and conduct, and an order of social life
providing its own answers to the questions with which man is confronted. This
system contains all necessary guidance for man, either by expounding fundamental
principles from which detailed directives can be deduced or by spelling out
such directives explicitly so that in no circumstances would one need to look
for guidance to any extraneous source.
The bounty referred to in the statement: 'I have bestowed upon you My bounty
in full measure', is the bounty of true guidance.
The statement: 'I have been pleased to assign for you Islam as your religion'
means that, since the Muslims had proved by their conduct and their striving
that they were honest and sincere about the commitment they had made to God
in embracing Islam - the commitment to serve and obey Him - He had accepted
their sincerity and created conditions in which they were no longer yoked in
bondage to anyone but Him. Thus the Muslims were not prevented from living in
submission to God out of extraneous constraints just as there were no constraints
preventing them from subscribing to true beliefs. Having recounted these favours,
God does not point out what should be the proper response to those favours.
But the implication is obvious: the only appropriate response on the part of
the believers must be unstinting observance of the law of God out of gratitude
to Him.
According to authentic traditions this verse was revealed in 10 A.H. on the
occasion of the Prophet's Farewell Pilgrimage. The context however, seems to
indicate that it was revealed soon after the conclusion of the Treaty of Hudaybiyah
(i.e. in 6 A.H.). All parts of the discourse in which this verse occurs are
so tightly interwoven and so closely inter-connected that it hardly seems conceivable
that it should have been inserted here several years later. My own estimate
- and true knowledge of this lies with God alone - is that this verse was originally
revealed in its present context (i.e. commenting upon the conditions prevailing
at the time of the Treaty of Hudaybiyah). It is conceivable that the true significance
of the verse was not then fully appreciated. But later on, when Islam prevailed
over the whole of Arabia and the power of Islam reached a high point, God once
again revealed this sentence to His Messenger and ordered him to proclaim it.
17. See Towards Understanding the Qur'an, vol. I, (Surah 2, n. 172).