The Quran

103

ما جَعَلَ اللَّهُ مِن بَحيرَةٍ وَلا سائِبَةٍ وَلا وَصيلَةٍ وَلا حامٍ ۙ وَلٰكِنَّ الَّذينَ كَفَروا يَفتَرونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ الكَذِبَ ۖ وَأَكثَرُهُم لا يَعقِلونَ

Muhammad Asad

IT IS NOT of God's ordaining that certain kinds of cattle should be marked out by superstition and set aside from the use of man;¹ yet those who are bent on denying the truth attribute their own lying inventions to God. And most of them never use their reason:

Lit., "God has not ordained anything [in the nature] of a bahirah, nor a sa'ibah, nor a wasilah, nor a ham." These expressions denote certain categories of domestic animals which the pre-Islamic Arabs used to dedicate to their various deities by setting them free to pasture and prohibiting their use or slaughter. They were selected mainly on the basis of the number, sex and sequence of their offspring; but the lexicographers and commentators are by no means unanimous in their attempts at definition. For this reason - as well as because of their inherent complexity the above four terms cannot be translated into any other language; consequently, I am rendering them in the text as "certain kinds of cattle marked out by superstition and set aside from the use of man": this being, in the consensus of all authorities, the common denominator of the four categories. It is obvious that their mention at this place (as well as, by implication, in 6:138-139 and 143-144) serves as an illustration of the arbitrary invention of certain supposedly "religious" obligations and prohibitions alluded to in the preceding two verses and explained in the corresponding notes.