That Iistcn to nothing But calls and cries: 1711 Deaf, dumb, and blind. 17 • They are void of wisdom. 172.
a
ye who believe! Eat of the good things That We have provided for you. And be grateful to Allah, If it is Him ye worship. 172
173. He hath only forbidden you Dead meat,173 and blood, And the nesh of swine, And that on which Any other name hath been invokcd Besides that of Allah. 174 But if one is forced by necessity, Without wilful disobedience,
170. If you rcjcct all faith, thc highcst wisdom and thc most salutary regulations arc lost on you. You lire like "dumb drivcn ellttlc" who can merely hear calls, but cannot distinguish intelligcntly between shades of mellning or subtle differences of values.
171. Cf. ii. 18, wherc we lire told that the rejectors of faith lire "dcaf, dumb and blind: they will not return to thc path." Here the consequencc of their not using thcir senscs is that they have no wisdom. In each context there is just the appropriate deduction. 172. Gratitude for Allah's gifts is one form of worship. 173. Dead mcat: mailal: carrion: animal that dics of itself: the original Arabic has a slightly wider meaning given to it in Fiqlr (Religious Law): anything thllt dies of itself and is not expressly killed for food with the Takbir duly pronounced on it. But there arc exceptions, e.g., fish and locusts arc lawful, though they have not been made specially Iratiit with the Takbir. 174. For prohibited foods, cf. Also Q. v. 3-4 vi. 121. 138-146: etc. The teachers of Fiqlr (Religious Law) work out the details with great elaboration. My purpose is to present general principles, not technical details. Carrion or dead meat and blood as articles of food would obviously clluse disgust to any refined person. So would swine's flesh where the swine live on offal. Where swine arc fed artificially on clean food, the objections remain: (I) that they are filthy animals in other respects, and the flesh of filthy animals taken as food affects the cater; (2) that swine's flesh has more fat than musclebuilding material: and (3) that it is more liable to disease than other kinds of meat; e.g., trichinosis, characterised by hair-like worms in the muscular tissue. As to food dedicated to idols or false gods, it is obviously unseemly for the Children of Unity to partake of it.
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