al-Baqara 2:172-173 — What is forbidden to eat

"You who believe! Eat of the good things We have provided you, and give thanks to God — if it is Him alone you serve. He has forbidden you only carrion, blood, the flesh of swine and what has been dedicated to other than God. But whoever is compelled — without desiring it and without exceeding the limit — there is no sin upon him. God is forgiving, merciful."

At verse 168 the same command had been given to all people: "eat of what is lawful and good on the earth." Here the command is repeated to the believers and one adjective drops:

I record this as my own reading: the dropping of the clause "lawful" is not a loosening but an assumption. For those who believe, the distinction of lawful and forbidden is a subject already discussed; what needs recalling is that within the permitted field too there is a choice. The second command, that is, goes a step further: not everything that is not forbidden is equal.

مَا رَزَقْنَٰكُمْ — and the source of the provision is recorded at once. This expression had occurred in the same form at the third verse of the sūra: "they spend of what We have provided them." In both places ownership is attached not to the eater or the giver but to the one who gives the provision.

وَٱشْكُرُوا۟ لِلَّهِ — the second half of the command. At verse 152 we recorded that thanks and unbelief are set opposite one another, and that the root sense of unbelief is "to cover". Here the same measure is applied to eating: eating is set down as an occasion for what is given to be seen.

إِن كُنتُمْ إِيَّاهُ تَعْبُدُونَ — "if it is Him alone you serve."

A point of word order: in the sentence the object (iyyāhu) is brought before the verb. In Arabic bringing the object forward conveys restriction — the same pattern as iyyāka naʿbudu in al-Fātiḥa. The sentence therefore means not "if you serve Him" but "if it is Him alone you serve".

And the placing of the conditional clause here prepares the next verse: the fourth of the things forbidden has to do precisely with the breaking of that restriction.

The particle إِنَّمَا in Arabic conveys qaṣr (restriction): "only, no more than". The sentence, that is, does not merely give a list; it says that the list is closed.

Its function within the context is plain. The previous section of the sūra (2/170-171) had criticised practices taken over from forefathers; in the Arabia of the age of ignorance there were many settled prohibitions about which animal might or might not be eaten. This sentence sets against all those prohibitions a closed list of four items.

The same four items are enumerated at several other places in the Qurʾān (al-Anʿām 6/145; al-Naḥl 16/115), and at al-Māʾida 5/3 the list is repeated in more detail. In this commentary I do not enter into their legal scope, their exceptions or the views of the schools of law; the subject belongs to the field of law, and what is dwelt on here is the language of the verse.

The fourth item differs in kind from the others, and this difference must be recorded.

The first three look to the substance: carrion, blood, the flesh of swine — the subject of the prohibition is the object itself. In the fourth, nothing at all is said about the object. The animal may be healthy, may have been slaughtered properly, its flesh may be clean. The ground of the prohibition is the word said while it is slaughtered.

أُهِلَّ — root ه-ل-ل: to raise the voice, to cry out. And the best-known derivative of the root will occur a few verses later in the same sūra: هِلَال (hilāl) — the new moon. The connection, as the lexicographers record it, is this: when the new moon was seen people announced it by shouting; the moon took this name because it is the thing shouted for.

The sūra uses this root in two separate places:

• 2/173 — uhilla bihī — the voice raised at the slaughter
• 2/189 — al-ahilla — the new moons

The measure of the prohibition, then, is the name announced. Slaughtering is an act; but a name is uttered at the head of the act, and that name determines to whom the act is done. This is the direct continuation of the clause "if it is Him alone you serve" at the end of verse 172.

I record this as my own reading: that three of the four items are built on hygiene and on the object while the last is built on intention and declaration prevents the list from being reduced to a single measure. The regulation of food cannot be explained wholly by health; there is also a question of belonging in it.

ٱضْطُرَّ — root ض-ر-ر: harm. The pattern is Form VIII (iftiʿāl) and the verb is passive: uḍṭurra — "he was compelled."

Its being passive matters. The person does not put himself into the situation of necessity; the necessity comes to him. This limits from the outset for whom the licence is.

And then two clauses follow: غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلَا عَادٍ. What these two words mean is a classical disagreement and must not be concealed:

I do not impose a preference. The common ground of the three readings is this: the licence is bounded by the scope of the necessity — it opens neither to desire nor to duration.

That the root ب-غ-ي carries the senses "to want, to seek" and "to pass the bound" together has occurred earlier in this commentary; the two senses are seen to work together here as well.

فَلَآ إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ — "there is no sin upon him." The form of the sentence is worth recording: the ruling is not lifted, responsibility is lifted. The prohibition stands where it is; the burden is taken off the person.

This is a structure repeated in the legal sections of the sūra: at verse 158 "there is no fault", at verses 184-185 the licence for the sick and the traveller, at verse 239 the changing of the form of the prayer in a state of fear, at verse 280 the postponement in hardship. Beside every ruling a door is left.

And the closing attributes are chosen accordingly: ghafūr (much-forgiving) and raḥīm (merciful). That the sentence following a prohibition ends with the attributes of pardon and not of punishment says what the licence is: not an open door but an application of mercy.