The Quran

143

ثَمانِيَةَ أَزواجٍ ۖ مِنَ الضَّأنِ اثنَينِ وَمِنَ المَعزِ اثنَينِ ۗ قُل آلذَّكَرَينِ حَرَّمَ أَمِ الأُنثَيَينِ أَمَّا اشتَمَلَت عَلَيهِ أَرحامُ الأُنثَيَينِ ۖ نَبِّئوني بِعِلمٍ إِن كُنتُم صادِقينَ

Muhammad Asad

[His followers would have it that, in certain cases, any of these] four kinds of cattle of either sex [is unlawful to man]: either of the two sexes of sheep and of goats."¹ Ask [them]: "Is it the two males that He has forbidden, or the two females, or that which the wombs of the two females may contain? Tell me what you know in this respect,"² if what you say is true."

Lit., "eight [in] pairs - of sheep two and of goats two" (the two other pairs are mentioned in the next verse). This is an outstanding example of the ellipticism often employed in the Qur'an: a mode of expression which cannot be correctly rendered in any other language without the use of explanatory interpolations. The term zawj denotes a pair of things as well as each of the two constituents of a pair: hence my rendering of thamaniyat azwa! (lit., "eight [in] pairs") as "four kinds of cattle of either sex". The particular superstition to which this and the next verse refer is probably identical with the one mentioned in 5:103.
Lit., "tell me with knowledge" - i.e., not on the basis of guesswork but of knowledge acquired through authentic revelation. The preceding and subsequent ironical questions are meant to bring out the vagueness and inconsistency which characterizes all such superstitious, self-imposed prohibitions.