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= This is among the soundest of what has been reported from the Prophet, peace be upon him. Al-Shaʿbī said: He was my neighbor and my close companion, and he narrated to me, and the practice is in accordance with it.

Some scholars have held a favorable view of this hadith and did not consider it rejected (munkar). Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī deemed its chain good (ḥasan) in al-Tanqīḥ, 3/372, and Ibn Kathīr deemed it excellent (jawwadah) in his Tafsīr at His saying, the Exalted: {And what you have taught of hunting beasts} (al-Māʾidah: 4), and declared it authentic (ṣaḥḥaḥa) in Takhrij Aḥādīth al-Tanbīh, 1/364. They adopted various approaches in reconciling this narration with the other narrations of Abū Thaʿlabah that agree with the narration of ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim. Among them is what al-Khaṭṭābī said: One may reconcile the two hadiths from the two narrations by making the hadith of Abū Thaʿlabah the basis for permissibility, and by understanding the prohibition in the hadith of ʿAdī as indicating disapproval (tanzīh) rather than prohibition (taḥrīm). It is also possible that the basis in this matter is the hadith of ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim, and that the prohibition is an absolute one, and that his words "even if it eats" refer to what has passed and preceded in time, not to the present situation.

We say: This second possibility—namely abrogation (naskh)—was also held by Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in al-Istidhkār (21949), where he said: The hadith of ʿAdī has contradicted the hadith of Abū Thaʿlabah, and it abrogates his statement in it: "Even if it eats, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: "Even if it eats."

Ibn al-Qayyim said in Tahdhīb al-Sunan: The correct view in this matter is that there is no contradiction between the two hadiths, assuming their authenticity. The hadith of ʿAdī concerning prohibition is understood as applying to the case where the dog eats from the prey at the time of its hunting, because it hunted it for itself. The hadith of Abū Thaʿlabah is understood as applying to the case where the dog eats from it after it has hunted it and the hunter has received it and forbidden it from it, then the dog returns to it and eats from it—in that case it is not forbidden, because the dog caught it for its owner, and its eating from it afterward is like eating from a sheep that its owner has slaughtered, or from meat in his possession. The difference between hunting and then the dog turning back to eat from it is a clear difference.

Ibn al-Mulaqqin said in al-Badr al-Munīr, 9/243, something similar to what Ibn al-Qayyim said.

Ibn al-Qayyim said: There is disagreement concerning the permissibility of what the dog eats from the prey. It was forbidden by Ibn ʿAbbās, Abū Hurayrah, ʿAṭāʾ, Ṭāwūs, al-Shaʿbī, al-Nakhaʿī, ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Abū Burdah, Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, and Qatādah. It is the view of Isḥāq, Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions, and it is the more sound and more well-known of the two narrations from Aḥmad, and one of the two views of al-Shāfiʿī. =