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V, 3-7.
But when ye are in lawful state again, then chase; and let not ill-will against the people who turned you from the Sacred Mosque1 make you transgress; but help one another in righteousness and piety, and do not help one another to sin and enmity; but fear God, verily, God is keen to punish.
Forbidden to you is that which dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that which is devoted to other than God, and the strangled and the knocked down, and that which falls down, and the gored, and what wild beasts have eaten-except what ye slaughter in time-and what is sacrificed to idols, and dividing carcases by arrows3.
To-day shall those who disbelieve in your religion despair; do ye not then fear them, but fear me— [5] To-day is perfected for you your religion, and fulfilled upon you is my favour, and I am pleased for you to have Islâm for a religion. But he who is forced by hunger, not inclined wilfully to sin, verily, God is forgiving, compassionate.
They will ask thee what is lawful for them? say, 'Lawful for you are good things and what ye have taught beasts of prey (to catch), training them like dogs;-ye teach them as God taught you;-so eat of what they catch for you, and mention the name of God over it, and fear God, for verily, God is swift in reckoning up.'
Lawful for you to-day are good things, and the food of those to whom the Book has been given is
THE CHAPTER OF THE TABLE.
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1 The Quraish, who sent to meet Mohammed with 1400 men at 'Hudâibîyeh to prevent him from approaching Mecca, A. H. 6.
2 Literally, 'stones set up,' Dolmens and the like, which are so common throughout Arabia.
3
By the game of mâisar, see p. 32.
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