Z.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hughes, Thomas Patrick
ẔABḤ (ذبح). Heb. זֶבַח zebak͟h. Arabic lexicographers define the word to mean the act of cutting the throat. In the language of the law, it denotes the act of slaying an animal agreeably to the prescribed forms, without which its flesh is not lawful for the food of man. See Qurʾān, Sūrah ii. 167, 168:—
“Eat of the good things wherewith we have provided you, and give thanks unto God, if ye are His worshippers. He has only forbidden for you that which is dead, and blood, and flesh of swine, and whatsoever has been consecrated to other than God; but he who is forced, neither revolting nor transgressing, it is no sin for him: for verily God is forgiving and merciful.”
The injunctions in the Traditions are more explicit (Mishkāt, book xviii. ch. i.), for example: Abū T̤ufail relates that ʿAlī was once asked, “Has the Prophet ever told you anything with regard to religion which he has not told others?” And ʿAlī replied, “Nothing, unless it be that which I have in the scabbard of my sword.” Then ʿAlī brought out of his scabbard a piece of paper, and thereon was written: “May God curse those who slay without repeating the name of God, in the same manner as the polytheists did in the names of their idols; may God curse those who remove their neighbours’ landmarks; may God curse those who curse their fathers; may God curse those who harbour innovators in matters of religion.”
According to Sunnī law, ẕabḥ is of two kinds: (1) Ik͟htiyārī, of choice; and (2) Iẓt̤irārī, of necessity.
The first is effected by cutting the throat above the breast and reciting the words Allāhu akbar, “God is most great”; and the second by reciting these words upon shooting an arrow or discharging a gun.
The latter act, however, is merely a substitute for the former, and accordingly is not of any account unless the former be impracticable; for the proper ẕabḥ is held to be by the shedding of blood, and the former method is most effectual for this purpose.
It is absolutely necessary that the person who slays the animal should be a Muslim or a kitābī (i.e. a Jew or a Christian), and that he should do it in the name of God alone; it signifies not whether the person be a man or a woman, or an infant, or an idiot, or an uncircumcised person.
An animal slain by a Magian is unlawful, as also that slain by an idolater or a polytheist. Ẕabḥ performed by an apostate from the Muslim faith (who is worthy of death) is also unlawful; but, according to Abū Ḥanīfah, if a Jew or a Christian become an apostate from his own creed, his ẕabḥ is lawful, for the Muslim law still regards him, with respect to ẕabḥ, in the same light as formerly.
If the slayer wilfully omit the invocation, “In the name of the most great God,” the flesh of the animal is unlawful; but if he omit the invocation through forgetfulness, it is lawful, although there is some difference of opinion on this subject amongst the Sunnī doctors. Ash-Shāfiʿī is of opinion that the animal is lawful in either case, but the Imām Mālik maintains that it is unlawful in both.
Abū Yūsuf and all the Ḥanafī doctors have declared, that an animal slain under a wilful omission of the invocation is utterly unlawful, and that the magistrate must forbid the sale of meat so killed.
It is a condition of ẕabḥ ik͟htiyārī that the invocation be pronounced over the animal at the time of slaying it; but in the case of ẕabḥ iẓt̤irārī (i.e. when a person slays an animal in hunting), the condition is that the invocation be pronounced at the time of letting loose the hound or hawk, or of shooting the arrow or gun, or casting the spear.
It is a condition of ẕabḥ that nothing but the invocation Bismi ʾllāhi Allāhi akbar, “In the name of God, God the most great,” should be said. That is, no prayer or other matter must be mentioned.
The place for slaying is betwixt the throat and the head of the breast-bone (Arabic labbah), and the vessels it is requisite to cut are four, al-hulqūm, “the wind-pipe,” al-marīʾ, “the gullet,” and al-warīdān, or al-wadajān, “the two jugular veins.”
Ash-Shāfiʿī holds that if a man slay an animal with a nail or horn or teeth, the flesh is unlawful, but this is not the opinion of other doctors. (See Durru ʾl-Muk͟htār and Hidāyah, in loco.)
AZ-ZABĀNĪYAH (الزبانية). Lit. “Guards.” The angels in charge of hell, of whom Mālik is said to be the chief. Sūrah xcvi. 17, 18: “So let him call his council: we will call the guards of hell (az-Zabānīyah).”
ẔABĪḤAH (ذبيحة). Lit. “Cut or divided lengthways.” Heb. זֶבַח zebak͟h. An animal slaughtered according to the law; a sacrifice. [LAWFUL FOOD, SACRIFICES.]
ZABĪR (زبير). A name for Mount Sinai. Al-Baiẓāwī says it is the mountain on which the Lord conversed with Moses. [SINAI, TUR.]
ẒABT̤ (ضبط). “Occupation, seizure.” In Muḥammadan law it means attachment, distraint, or sequestration; taking lands under the management of Government officers.
ZABŪR (زبور), pl. zubur. Also zubūr, pl. of zibr. From the Heb. זִמְרָה zimrāh, “a psalm or chant” (Psa. lxxxi. 2, xcviii. 5). The title given to the Psalms of David in the Qurʾān, where it occurs only three times.
Sūratu ʾn-Nisāʾ (iv.) 161: “And to David we gave Psalms (zabūran).”
Sūratu ʾl-Miʿrāj (xvii.) 57: “And Psalms (zabūran) we gave to David.”
Sūratu ʾl-Ambiyāʾ (xxi.) 105: “And now, since the exhortation (ẕikr) was given, have we written in the Psalms (fī ʾz-zabūri) that my servants the righteous shall inherit the earth.”
Both Sale and Rodwell take this last to be a quotation from Psa. xxxvii. 29 (it appears to be the only direct quotation from either the Old or New Testament in the whole of the Qurʾān), and they have both translated the Arabic ẕikr “the law,” meaning, of course, the Taurāt. Amongst Muslim commentators, there is considerable difference of opinion as to what is meant in this verse by ẕikr and zabūr.
The commentator al-Baiẓāwī says there are three views. Said ibn Jubair and Mujaiyid explained the word zabūr to mean all inspired books, and that by ẕikr was meant the Preserved Tablet (al-Lauḥu ʾl-Maḥfūz̤). Ibn ʿAbbās and aẓ-Ẓaḥḥāk said by zabūr was meant the Taurāt, and by ẕikr those books which came after. And Shaʿbī said the zabūr was the Book of David, and the ẕikr that of Moses.
Al-Bag͟hawī and al-Jalālān decide in favour of the first interpretation, Ḥusain decides in favour of the third, whilst al-Baiẓāwī leaves it an open question.
Jalālu ʾd-dīn as-Suyūt̤ī gives the word zabūr as one of the fifty-five titles of the Qurʾān.
ZACHARIAS. Arabic Zakarīyāʾ (زكرياء). [ZAKARIYAʾ.]
ZAFĪR (زفير). Lit. “Drawing back the breath because of distress; groaning.” In the Qurʾān, for the groans of hell. Sūrah xi. 108: “In the Fire, there shall they groan.”
ẔAʿFIRĀNĪYAH (ذعفرانية). A sect of Muslims, who say the Qurʾān is a created thing, the orthodox school maintaining that the Word of God is uncreated. (Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrīfāt, in loco.)
ZAḤF (زحف). Lit. “A swarming multitude.” An army; a military force arrayed for battle.
Qurʾān, Sūrah viii. 15: “O ye who believe! when ye meet the marshalled hosts of the unbelievers, turn not your backs to them.” Hence, battle, combat.
ZĀHID (زاهد). Lit. “Abstinent; continent.” An ascetic person. Zāhid-i-k͟hushk, Persian, “a dissembler, a hypocrite.”
Z̤ĀHIR (ظاهر). “Outward, exterior, manifest.” A word much used in Muslim theology to express that which is manifest, as distinguished from bāt̤in, “interior,” or k͟hafī, “that which is hidden.”
AZ̤-Z̤ĀHIR (الظاهر). “The Evident.” One of the ninety-nine attributes of God.
Qurʾān, Sūrah lviii. 3: “He is the First and the Last, the Evident and the Hidden.”
Z̤ĀHIRU ʾL-MAẔHAB (ظاهر المذهب). An expression used by Ḥanafī Muslims for those theological questions which are decided in the four well-known Sunnī books: al-Mabsūt̤, al-Jāmiʿu ʾl-Kabīr, al-Jāmiʿu ʾṣ-Ṣag͟hīr, as-Sairu ʾl-Kabīr.
Z̤ĀHIRU ʾL-MUMKINĀT (ظاهر الممكنات). An expression used by theologians for the proofs of God’s existence, power, and attributes, as exhibited in nature.
ZAID IBN AL-HĀRIS̤ (زيد بن الــحــارث). Muḥammad’s freedman and adopted son. Muḥammad having seen and admired Zaid’s wife Zainab, her husband divorced her. The relations of the ancient Arabs to their adopted children were very strict, and Muḥammad’s marriage with the divorced wife of his adopted son occasioned much scandal amongst his contemporaries. A revelation was consequently produced which revoked the inconvenient restrictions.
Sūrah xxxiii. 37: “And when Zaid had settled the necessary matter of her divorce, we did wed her to thee, that it might not be a crime in the faithful to marry the wives of their adopted sons, when they have settled the necessary affair concerning them.”
Zaid was slain at the battle of Mūtah, as he carried the standard of Islām, A.H. 8.