Sūrah Al-Anʿām The Cattle
سورة الأنعام
Al-Qurṭubī treats Al-Anʿām as the primary surah for Islamic creedal law (ʿaqīdah-fiqh interface) and animal slaughter rulings, extracting from 6:118–121 the definitive rulings on the name of Allah at slaughter, the prohibition of eating what Allah's name was not mentioned over, and the four-school analysis of the slaughter formula.
Surah Overview
Key Themes from Al-Qurṭubī
Al-Qurṭubī opens Al-Anʿām's legal section with the comprehensive Makkī argument for monotheism and then pivots to the slaughter rulings in 6:118–121. He analyses 6:118 "eat of what Allah's name has been mentioned over" as an affirmative command establishing tasmiyah as the minimum for lawful slaughter. He then analyses 6:121 "do not eat of what Allah's name was not mentioned over, for it is indeed a transgression" as a prohibition with the default legal consequence of ḥarām. The gap between the Shāfiʿī position (sunnah only) and the three-school majority (obligatory) is traced by al-Qurṭubī to a difference in how they weight the restriction ("do not eat") Shāfiʿī reads 5:5's People-of-the-Book permission as overriding, since they do not invoke the Islamic tasmiyah.
On 6:145's food prohibition list "I find not in what has been revealed to me anything prohibited except carrion, flowing blood, pork, or what was dedicated to other than Allah" al-Qurṭubī uses this verse to establish that the Makkī food prohibition list is identical to the Madanī list in 5:3. He then addresses the question: why does 6:145 say "I find not... except" (lā ajidu fī mā ūḥiya ilayya muḥarraman illā) if the Prophet later added more prohibitions via sunnah? Al-Qurṭubī's answer: 6:145 refers to Quranic prohibitions; the Sunnah adds to this list (predators with fangs, birds with talons, domestic donkeys, etc.) via prophetic authority established by 5:92.
- Tasmiyah three-school majority: Al-Qurṭubī aligns with Ḥanafī, Mālikī, and Ḥanbalī tasmiyah is obligatory and deliberate omission results in ḥarām meat; Shāfiʿī dissents on a specific uṣūl reading.
- Sunnah additions to Quranic list: Al-Qurṭubī resolves the 6:145 "only these four prohibited" statement by limiting it to Quranic prohibitions sunnah then adds predators, fanged animals, etc., under the authority established by 5:92.
- Flowing blood distinction: The qualifier "masfūḥ" (flowing) in 6:145 is a key legal specification al-Qurṭubī extracts from it that absorbed blood in cooked meat is not prohibited, only blood that flows at slaughter.
- Default prohibition principle: Al-Qurṭubī applies "al-aṣl fī l-manāhī al-taḥrīm" the explicit prohibition in 6:121 makes unlawful-by-default any meat slaughtered without tasmiyah, with forgetfulness as a pardoned exception.
- Monotheism-food law link: Al-Qurṭubī observes that Al-Anʿām connects creedal monotheism with food law eating what was slaughtered for idols is both a food prohibition and an act of association with shirk.