On the authority of ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym, who said: A letter of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was read to us in the land of Juhaynah while I was a young boy: "Do not benefit from the skin or sinew of an animal that died without being slaughtered."(1)

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(1) Its chain of transmission is weak. Regarding ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym, al-Bukhārī said in his *Al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr* 5/39—and this is what Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī said, as transmitted by his son in *Al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl* 5/121—that he lived during the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), but no sound hearing from him is known. Moreover, the narration is disordered, as we have explained in *Musnad Aḥmad* (18780). Al-Ḥakam is Ibn ʿUtaybah.

It was also recorded by Ibn Mājah (3613), al-Tirmidhī (1826), and al-Nasāʾī in *Al-Sunan al-Kubrā* (4561) and (4562) via multiple chains from al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah, from him. Al-Tirmidhī said: This is a ḥasan ḥadīth, and it is narrated from ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym from their elders. Most scholars do not act upon this.

It is also found in *Musnad Aḥmad* (18780) and *Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān* (1277).

See also what follows.

Al-Khaṭṭābī said: The position of the majority of scholars is that tanning is permissible and that the skin is deemed pure once tanned. They weakened this ḥadīth because ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym did not meet the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him); rather, he is merely reporting from a letter that came to them. Even if the ḥadīth were established, it is possible that the prohibition concerns benefiting from it before tanning. The sound reports that have come regarding tanning cannot be abandoned on its account, and it may be interpreted as abrogated. And Allah knows best.

Ibn Ḥibbān said following the ḥadīth of ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym (1279): The meaning of this report is: do not benefit from the skin or sinew of an animal that died without being slaughtered—meaning before tanning. The evidence for its correctness is the Prophet's saying (peace and blessings be upon him): "Any skin that is tanned has been purified."

Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in *Al-Talkhīṣ* 1/48: Al-Ḥāzimī discussed this ḥadīth in *Al-Nāsikh wa al-Mansūkh* and gave it full treatment. The gist of what the Shāfiʿīs and others replied with is: the defect of interruption (irsāl), namely that ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym did not hear it from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him); the disconnection (inqiṭāʿ) in that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā did not hear it from ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUkaym; and the disorder in its chain, for sometimes he said "from the letter of the Prophet," sometimes "from elders of Juhaynah," and sometimes "from the one who read the letter." =