يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ مَاذَآ أُحِلَّ لَهُمْ ۖ قُلْ أُحِلَّ لَكُمُ ٱلطَّيِّبَٰتُ وَمَا عَلَّمْتُم مِّنَ ٱلْجَوَارِحِ مُكَلِّبِينَ تُعَلِّمُونَهُنَّ مِمَّا عَلَّمَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ
Yasʾalūnaka mādhā uḥilla lahum · Qul uḥilla lakumu'ṭ-ṭayyibātu wa mā ʿallamtum mina'l-jawāriḥi mukallibīna tuʿallimūnahunna mimmā ʿallamakumu'llāh · Fa-kulū mimmā amsakna ʿalaykum wa'dhkuru'sma'llāhi ʿalayh · Wa'ttaqu'llāh · Inna'llāha sarīʿu'l-ḥisāb
"They ask you what has been made lawful to them. Say: the good things have been made lawful to you. And what you have trained the birds and beasts of prey to catch, teaching them out of what God has taught you — so eat of what they hold for you, and pronounce God's name over it. Be mindful of God; God is swift in reckoning."
The verse opens with a question and is answered with qul (say). It was recorded at al-Baqara 2/186 that when a question is asked in the Qurʾān the pattern is almost always "they ask you about…; say". This verse is one of the instances of that pattern.
And the first word of the answer widens the question. The question was put narrowly, "what has been made lawful"; instead of enumerating one by one, the answer gives a measure: al-ṭayyibāt.
The root ط-ي-ب was treated in al-Nūr at 24/26 and in al-Baqara at 2/168: pleasant, clean, good in its own substance. I rely on that treatment.
I record this as my own reading: the preceding verse had given a long list of prohibitions; this verse gives not a list but a measure. When the two stand one after the other the structure that emerges is this: what is forbidden is countable and limited, while the open field is uncountable and wide.
The concrete sense of the root: to wound, to open a wound. Jurḥ — a wound; jarrāḥ — one who opens or mends a wound (the Turkish "cerrah", "cerrahi" — surgeon, surgical — are from this root).
The second branch of the root is interesting and is recorded by the lexicographers: jaraḥa — to earn, to acquire. The Qurʾān uses this sense too: wa yaʿlamu mā jaraḥtum bi'n-nahār (al-Anʿām 6/60) — "and He knows what you have earned by day."
These two branches come out of one picture: the hand reaches for a thing and tears it off / wounds it — and this is at once wounding and earning. See: the root ج-ر-م treated at 5/2 had exactly this logic — to pluck off and to earn. The two roots are independent of each other but share the same image.
From the same root jawāriḥ is used of a person's limbs as well — because the limbs are the parts of a person that "earn". Here, however, what is meant is the animals of prey (birds of prey and four-footed beasts): those that catch by wounding.
كَلْب — dog. The active participle of Form II, mukallib: one who trains dogs, who raises hunting animals.
The pattern of the word deserves attention: Form II (tafʿīl) conveys repetition and continuity. That is, the trainer is not a person who teaches once but one who teaches again and again. The word describes an expertise.
And the same verb (ع-ل-م, Form II) is used at both links. The sentence shows the source of what man teaches the animal: mimmā ʿallamakumu'llāh — "out of what God has taught you."
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the repetition of the verb: in a very everyday matter — training a hunting dog — the reader is reminded where knowledge comes from. Skill is named not as man's own invention but as the continuation of something handed on.
And the particle min is partitive (conveying a part of something): "out of part of what He has taught". Man can pass on not the whole of what has been taught him but a part. The chain narrows at every link.
أَمْسَكْنَ — root م-س-ك: to hold, not to let go. And the qualification ʿalaykum matters: "what they hold for you". That is, the animal holds it not for itself but for its owner.
The legal debates around this qualification — the conditions for counting an animal trained, the animal's eating from the catch, the use of arrows and instruments — are not entered into. These are the subject of the literature of law and are not settled here.
وَٱذْكُرُوا۟ ٱسْمَ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ — and the measure treated at 5/3 is repeated here: what is decisive is the name pronounced.
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَرِيعُ ٱلْحِسَابِ — the closing. The word is a reminder of the reckoning placed at the end of an everyday matter such as hunting and food. It will be seen throughout the sūra that the sections of ruling close in this way.