How should specific types of meat be categorized as genera or species (siff) for exchange purposes?
Chapter on Riba (Usury) and Exchange (Sarf)
Al-Mughni
Book of Sales
Primary text
The meat of camels, whether sedentary (bakhathi) or nomadic (urub), constitutes one species. The meat of cattle, both domesticated and water buffalo, constitutes another species. Sheep (ḍa’n) and goats (ma'iz) constitute a species, although there is a potential for them to be two species because the Quran distinguished between them in the pairs of the eight kinds (Quran 28:143-144). Wild animals are classified by species: their cattle meat is one species, their sheep meat is another, and their gazelle meat is a third. Any animal with a specific name constituting its own category is a species. Fowl are also species, where anything separated by its own name and characteristic is a distinct species. Consequently, meat of one species may be exchanged for meat of another species with disparity (tafāḍul) or equality (tamāthul). It may also be exchanged with disparity when the condition of one is superior to the other.
Supporting text
The view that all meat is one genus means that selling meat for meat is only permissible equally (mithl bi-mithl). Conversely, if they are classified as distinct species, selling meat of one species for meat of another is permissible with disparity or equality, or for a different condition with equality.