Muwatta, Book of Sacrifices (dahaya)

The Book of Sacrificial Animals is the ninth book of the Muwatta in the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi from Malik ibn Anas, in the edition of Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf (1997). It occupies pages 619 to 627 of the first volume in the PDF pagination, and contains 16 numbered texts (1387–1402) in six chapters. It concerns the defects to be avoided in the sacrificed animal, those that are recommended, the time of slaughter, storing the meat, and sharing in the offering. ^{1 2}

• What is forbidden in sacrificial animals (1387–1388): the lame animal whose lameness is clear, the one-eyed animal whose blindness is clear, the sick animal whose sickness is clear, and the emaciated animal with no marrow; Abdullah ibn Umar used to avoid an animal that had not reached its age or had lost something of its make-up. ^{1 3}
• What is recommended in sacrificial animals, and the prohibition on slaughtering before the imam (1389–1391): buying a horned ram that is a male; and the sacrifice of Abu Burda ibn Niyar (may God be pleased with him), who slaughtered his animal before the Prophet ﷺ, and the Prophet's instruction that he repeat it. ^{3 4}
• Storing the meat of sacrificial animals (1392–1394): the Prophet's prohibition on eating the meat of sacrificial animals after three days, then his permission to eat, give in charity and store it because of the people who had come to Medina; and the prohibition on preparing drinks in certain vessels (intibadh) and on visiting graves. ^{5 6}
• Sharing in sacrificial animals (1395–1398): a camel for seven and a cow for seven; that a man slaughters on behalf of himself and his household; and that Malik disapproves of a group of separate people sharing a single sacrifice. ^{7 8}
• Sacrifice on behalf of what is in the womb, and the days of sacrifice (1399–1402): the days of the Eid al-Adha after the day of sacrifice; that no sacrifice is made on behalf of what is in a woman's womb; and that sacrifice is a sunna and not an obligation. ^{8 2}

Malik quotes the sayings of Ibn Umar, Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) and Said ibn al-Musayyab, and prefers what the people of Medina hold, saying "the matter is among us" and "the best I have heard". He mentions disconnected hadiths in the Muwatta and compares them with connected ones in other books, as in the hadith on pronouncing the name of God over the slaughtered animal. ^{9 10}

The editor records the transmitters from Malik, and quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on disconnected and connected transmission. He notes that the hadith on pronouncing the name of God over the slaughtered animal is disconnected in the transmissions of all the Muwatta's narrators; that the connected version from Aisha is in al-Bukhari; and that Abu Zur'a al-Razi and al-Daraqutni preferred the disconnected version. He also notes that the report from Zayd ibn Aslam on the camel slaughtered with a stick is disconnected in the Muwatta's transmissions and connected by other routes. ^{9 11}

Each text of the book has its own record. It gives the highest narrator and the chapter of the text, presents the substance of the report in the museum's wording, and records the editor's takhrij where it is needed. See Slaughter and Offering for the places where the book's rulings appear. ¹