Whole Animal?

Some argue that because the word animal is not explicitly mentioned in the verses mentioning the list of dietary prohibitions, this indicates that this prohibition constitutes all foods beyond what we eat from slaughtering an animal. But the problem with this argument is that such an understanding fails to recognize that the entire verse is clearly regarding animals as a whole.

The reason this is obvious is because if we look at the other three prohibitions, despite never mentioning livestock or animals verbatim, the context is clearly only about animals. This is because only an animal can be carrion, "maytatan" ( مَيْتَةً ), and only an animal can produce blood poured forth "daman masfūḥan" ( دَمًا مَسْفُوحًا ). Therefore, it makes no sense to constitute non-animal products like apples and oranges in either of these categories, despite the word animal never occurring for these prohibitions. This is also why God specifies that regarding the whole pig, only the meat of the pig is prohibited. And additionally, we will see in the next section that the word "uhilla" only constitutes animals and not other foods.

This also settles the matter of whether it is only the meat of animals that were sacrificed to other than God is prohibited or the whole animal. Since we start with the premise that the verse is in the context of the whole animal and unless the verse states differently, then we know that this is what is prohibited. So, for instance, the whole animal that is carrion is prohibited, the running blood from a whole animal is prohibited, only the meat of the whole pig is prohibited, and the whole animal is dedicated at the time of slaughter to other than God is prohibited.