Volume 3, Book 44, Number 668:
Narrated ‘Abaya bin Rafa’a bin Raft’ bin Khadij:
My grandfather said, “We were in the company of the Prophet at Dhul-Hulaifa. The people felt
hungry and captured some camels and sheep (as booty). The Prophet was behind the people. They
hurried and slaughtered the animals and put their meat in pots and started cooking it. (When the
Prophet came) he ordered the pots to be upset and then he distributed the animals (of the booty), re –
garding ten sheep as equal to one camel. One of the camels fled and the people ran after it till they
were exhausted. At that time there were few horses. A man threw an arrow at the camel, and Allah
stopped the camel with it. The Prophet said, “Some of these animals are like wild animals, so if you
lose control over one of these animals, treat it in this way (i.e. shoot it with an arrow).” Before distrib –
uting them among the soldiers my grandfather said, “We may meet the enemies in the future and
have no knives; can we slaughter the animals with reeds?” The Prophet said, “Use whatever causes
blood to flow, and eat the animals if the name of Allah has been mentioned on slaughtering them. Do
not slaughter with teeth or fingernails and I will tell you why: It is because teeth are bones (i.e. can –
not cut properly) and fingernails are the tools used by the Ethiopians (whom we should not imitate
for they are infidels).”