O you who believe do not slay game while you are in the state of pilgrimage inviolability for the hajj or the ‘umra; whoever of you slays it wilfully then the compensation shall be read fa-jazā’un ‘then the compensation shall be’ followed by a nominative mithlu ‘the like of’ that is to say a compensation is incumbent on him and that is the equivalent of what he has slain of flocks in other words a similar creature a variant reading has an annexation construction for jazā’ ‘compensation’ sc. fa-jazā’u mithli ‘then the compensation of’ to be judged that is the equivalent is to be judged by two just men among you both possessing astuteness with which they are able to identify the nearest animal in equivalence to it the slain animal. Ibn ‘Abbās ‘Umar and ‘Alī may God be pleased with them all adjudged a beast of sacrifice as redemption for an ostrich slain; Ibn ‘Abbās and Abū ‘Ubayda adjudged a cow as redemption for wildebeest or wild ass; ‘Abd Allāh Ibn ‘Umar and ‘Abd al-Rahmān Ibn ‘Awf a sheep for a gazelle and as Ibn ‘Abbās ‘Umar and others did a sheep also as a redemption for slaying pigeons because they pigeons resemble these sheep in taking scoops of water when drinking; an offering hadyan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to jazā’ ‘compensation’ to reach the Ka‘ba that is to be taken into the Sanctuary sacrificed there and given as a voluntary offering to its needy residents and it cannot be sacrificed wherever else it may be bāligha l-ka‘ba ‘to reach the Ka‘ba’ is in the accusative because it is an adjectival qualification of what precedes even if it stands as an annexation since such an annexation is only morphological and not valid as a grammatical characterisation; if there is no equivalent beast of flock for the game slain as in the case of a small bird or locusts then the person is obliged to compensate with equivalent value. Or it is incumbent on him to make an expiation other than compensation and if he should find the means then this expiation is food for the poor food to be taken from the principal food of the town equivalent to the value of the compensation being one mudd measure for each poor person a variant reading has kaffāra ‘expiation’ in an annexation with the following noun sc.
