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Text and translation
English translation
3238. It was narrated that Thâbit bin Yazid Al-Ansâri said: "We were with the Prophet ﷺ and the people caught a mastigure. They grilled it and ate from it. Then I caught a mastigure so I grilled it
and brought it to the Prophet ﷺ. He took a palm stalk and started counting his fingers with it, and said: 'A nation from among the Children of Israel was turned into beasts of the earth, and I do not know if this is they.' I said: 'The people have grilled them and eaten them. He did not eat it and he did not forbid it.'" (Sahih)
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Footnotes
1
[1] A type of lizard (uromastyx) with a spiny tail, it grows up to one or two feet in length.
Commentary
The translation of Dabb is mastigure who has a spiny tail. (Footnotes of Ibn Mājah, Muhammad Fuwād Abdul-Bāqī.) This animal goes through life without ever drinking water. Arabs used a proverb for impossibility which reads 'I will not do such and such act unless a Dabb comes to water'. Since a Dabb does not drink water rather the moisture in the air and the plants it eats is enough for it. (See Fathul-Bārī, vol. 9, page 820)
