Muwatta, Book of Slaughter (dhaba'ih)

The Book of Slaughtered Animals is the tenth 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 629 to 633 of the first volume in the PDF pagination, and contains 11 numbered texts (1403–1413) in four chapters. It concerns ritual slaughter: pronouncing the name of God over it, what is permitted in cases of necessity, what is disliked in the slaughtered animal, and the ruling on what is in its belly. ^{1 2}

• Pronouncing the name of God over the slaughtered animal (1403–1404): the Prophet ﷺ's question about the meat of the people of the desert, his saying "pronounce the name of God over it and then eat it"; and one who told his servant to slaughter and did not pronounce the name. ^{1 3}
• What is permitted in slaughter in cases of necessity (1405–1409): a ewe in milk that died and was slaughtered with a stick; the slaughter of a female slave with a stone; the slaughtered animals of the Christian Arabs; and what cuts the two jugular veins. ^{3 4}
• What is disliked in the slaughtered animal (1410–1411): a sheep part of which moves after slaughter, and the sayings of Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) and Zayd ibn Thabit (may God be pleased with him) on it. ⁴
• Slaughter of what is in the belly of the slaughtered animal (1412–1413): that the slaughter of the foetus is included in the slaughter of its mother once its form is complete and its hair has grown. ²

Malik quotes the disconnected hadiths of raising to the Prophet found in the Muwatta, and relies on the sayings of Ibn Umar, Ibn Abbas and Said ibn al-Musayyab. He sometimes says "the matter is among us" in rulings on slaughter. In most questions he stops at what has reached him from the Companions and the Successors. ^{1 2}

The editor records the transmitters from Malik, and quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on disconnected and connected transmission. Among these points: the hadith on pronouncing the name of God over the slaughtered animal is disconnected in the transmissions of all the Muwatta's narrators; the connected version from Aisha is in al-Bukhari; and Abu Zur'a al-Razi and al-Daraqutni preferred the disconnected version. He also notes that the stopping of the report on the slaughter of the foetus is sounder, as established by Abu Hatim al-Razi, Ibn Adi and al-Bayhaqi. ^{1 2}

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 for the places where the book's rulings appear. ¹