al-Naḥl 16:114-115

Fa-kulū mimmā razaqakumu'llāhu ḥalālan ṭayyibā, wa'shkurū niʿmata'llāhi in kuntum iyyāhu taʿbudūn · Innamā ḥarrama ʿalaykumu'l-maytata wa'l-dama wa laḥma'l-khinzīri wa mā uhilla li-ghayri'llāhi bih, fa-mani'ḍṭurra ghayra bāghin wa lā ʿādin fa-inna'llāha ghafūrun raḥīm

"Eat of what God has provided you, lawful and wholesome; and give thanks for God's favour, if it is Him you serve. · He has forbidden you only carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and what has been consecrated to other than God. But whoever is driven by necessity — not desiring it and not going beyond the bound — God is most forgiving, most merciful."

It must be recorded: these two verses come directly after the parable of the secure town and are connected with it.

In the parable the town had been ungrateful bi-anʿumi'llāh. The hundred and fourteenth verse answers with the same word: wa'shkurū niʿmata'llāh.

This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra. And I record this as my own reading, its ground being that the two passages stand back to back: the sūra sets a passage on the lawful and the forbidden after an account of ingratitude. The rulings, that is, come as the outcome of an accounting.

This list of four items occurs in four places in the Qurʾān: al-Baqara 2/173, al-Māʾida 5/3, al-Anʿām 6/145, and here.

The list was treated at al-Baqara, 2/173; I rely on that treatment.

And what must be recorded is that the list is given with a particle of restriction: innamā — "only, no more than".

I give this as an observation about the word order: the sentence does not build a list of prohibitions; it draws a boundary. And this is the subject of the next section (116): declaring things forbidden on one's own authority.

And the dispensation has the same structure as the dispensation in the hundred and sixth verse, and this must be recorded:

Both dispensations rest on the same skeleton: a passive verb plus an inward qualification. This is an overlap verifiable within the sūra.

اضْطُرَّ — root ض-ر-ر: harm. In Form VIII, passive: "he was forced into a strait, he was left with no choice." And that the verb is passive shows that the necessity is not the person's own choosing — just as with ukriha.

غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلَا عَادٍ — two qualifications. The root ب-غ-ي was enumerated in the ninetieth verse among the things forbidden (wa'l-baghy). Here it comes back as the limit of the dispensation. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.

And the lexicographers dwell on the difference between the two words, and two explanations are transmitted:

Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference, and I issue no legal ruling.