Islamic Fiqh > Foods and drinks > Game and hunting
Lawful hunting: the conditions of tool, shooter and game, the training of hunting animals, and found game.
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Updated on 31 August 2026 at 3:55 AM
Hunting is lawful as a principle, except for the pilgrim in ihram and the sacred territory (al-Ma'ida 2 and 96). The encyclopedia then frames the practice: the tool, the shooter, the trained animal, the name of Allah and the recovered game.
What made the blood gush, with the name of Allah mentioned, eat of it, except the tooth and the nail: the tooth is a bone and the nail is the knife of the Abyssinians.al-Bukhari 5224 ; Muslim 1968
Every sharp weapon that makes the blood gush counts: iron, edged stone, sharpened wood, reed, glass. What kills by weight without a cut (a blunt projectile) does not render the game lawful if the animal dies without a cutting wound; game struck and killed without a cut is eaten only if slaughtered afterwards. The net renders the catch lawful only if it carries an inner blade; without one, an animal caught in the net and dead is not eaten.
If you send your trained dog while mentioning the name of Allah, eat what it catches for you; if it eats of the animal, do not eat, for I fear it caught it only for itself; and if another dog joins it, do not eat.al-Bukhari 5169 ; Muslim 1929
The dog or the falcon must be trained: it answers the call, restrains itself at the command. On its eating of the prey, the schools divide: for the dog, the majority requires that it not eat, based on the hadith; Hanafis, Shafi'is (in the mazhab) and Hanbalis (in the mazhab) require it likewise, while Malikis and Shafi'is in one view rely on the general verse « eat what they catch for you » (al-Ma'ida 4). For the falcon and hunting birds, the encyclopedia records agreement: what they peck of the prey does no harm, since they cannot be kept from pecking.
The shot must aim at hunting: the arrow fallen from the hand that kills does not authorize. The invocation at the moment of release divides: Hanbalis make it a condition; Shafi'is a confirmed sunna, the animal remaining lawful, based on Aisha's hadith: « people bring us meat and we do not know whether they pronounced the name of Allah: pronounce it and eat » (al-Bukhari 1952).
If it dies before being caught, it is lawful; if caught alive, it requires slaughter, by agreement of the jurists. Malik, followed by the majority, rejects the meat of the hunter able to slaughter who neglects until the animal dies. If the animal drank its own blood, no school derives an obstacle from it.
The conditions of training (return, restraint) and of the cutting wound form the common ground; the rest belongs to school detail.