The Quran

Preface

يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا لا تَقتُلُوا الصَّيدَ وَأَنتُم حُرُمٌ ۚ وَمَن قَتَلَهُ مِنكُم مُتَعَمِّدًا فَجَزاءٌ مِثلُ ما قَتَلَ مِنَ النَّعَمِ يَحكُمُ بِهِ ذَوا عَدلٍ مِنكُم هَديًا بالِغَ الكَعبَةِ أَو كَفّارَةٌ طَعامُ مَساكينَ أَو عَدلُ ذٰلِكَ صِيامًا لِيَذوقَ وَبالَ أَمرِهِ ۗ عَفَا اللَّهُ عَمّا سَلَفَ ۚ وَمَن عادَ فَيَنتَقِمُ اللَّهُ مِنهُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَزيزٌ ذُو انتِقامٍ

Yusuf Ali

O ye who believe! Kill not game while in the sacred precincts or in pilgrim garb.¹ If any of you doth so intentionally, the compensation is an offering, brought to the Ka?ba, of a domestic animal equivalent to the one he killed,² as adjudged by two just men among you; or by way of atonement, the feeding of the indigent; or its equivalent in fasts: that he may taste of the penalty of his deed. God forgives what is past: for repetition God will exact from him the penalty. For God is Exalted, and Lord of Retribution.

See 2:1 and n. 684. The pilgrim garb, Iḥrām, has been explained in n. 212, 2:196.
For an inadvertent breach of the game rule there is apparently no penalty.
Intentional breach will be prevented, if possible, by previous action. If in some case the preventive action is not effective, the penalty is prescribed. The penalty is in three alternatives: an equivalent animal should be brought to the Ka‘ba for sacrifice; If so, the meat would be distributed to the poor; or the poor must be fed, with grain or money, according to the value of the animal if one had been sacrificed: or the offender must fast as many days as the number of the poor who would have been fed under the second alternative. Probably the last alternative would only be open if the offender is too poor to afford the first or second, but on this point Commentators are not agreed. The “equivalent animal” in the first alternative would be a domestic animal of similar value or weight in meat or of similar shape (e.g., goat to antelope), as adjudged by two just men on the spot. The alternatives about the penalty and its remission (“God forgives what is past”) or exaction explain the last two lines of the verse: being “Exalted and Lord of Retribution”, God can remit or regulate according to His just laws.