An Interpretative Study on the Lawfulness of What Sacrificed by the People of the Book

The fifth verse of Maidah chapter is of those not agreed with by commentators on the lawfulness of what sacrificed by the people of the book. The verse clearly refers to the lawfulness of those people‘s food for Muslims: The food of those who have received the Scripture is lawful for you. Lexically considered, the word food means sacrifice or something more general than sacrifice. Yet, the traditions under the verse seem to be contradicted. In some traditions by food is meant sacrifice, while in some other seeds. This paper has viewed seeds as an example for food; in this way there can be no contradiction in traditions. Not agreeing with this view, the traditions would be of no validity and one must trust only on the external meaning of the verse or prefer those traditions supporting sacrifice because of their harmony with the verse.