Accounts of the prophet Muhammad’s distribution of the camel meat, skins, and coverings along with his hair and nails can be understood as a cosmogonic myth in which a primordial being is dismembered at the origins of society. Muslim jurists explain that offering animals redeems the body of the pilgrim for a violation against the sanctity of the Ḥajj, and that the original purpose was to fulfill the ritual requirement of offering a substitute animal and pieces of the pilgrims’ own bodies as atonement. Numerous pre-Islamic traditions demonstrate the link between the partitioned body of the animal and the individual or group for whom it is offered. Hair and other removed or “dead” body parts are often used in place of and to symbolize the otherwise intact body of the person or society. The prophet Muhammad’s own “dead” body, including artificial relics which had come into contact with his living body, played a significant role in the establishment of Islam by his earliest followers.