If the usurper says, “I have now mixed the wheat with the barley. The wheat I mixed amounted to five ṣāʿs, and I will give you—the owner—ten ṣāʿs,” is the owner to be compelled to accept, or not? They say: He is not to be compelled; rather, it should be said: “Separate out the wheat, even if you must pay more than its equivalent value.”

In one respect, this may indeed be regarded as a sound view, because it deters usurpers: if the usurper knows that he will be held liable to this extent, he will not usurp. But if we consider the harm involved—and the Prophet ﷺ said, “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm” (1)—then the view gains force that the person whose property was usurped should be compelled to accept wheat equivalent to the wheat that was usurped. The wheat should now be treated as though it had perished, for when someone destroys wheat, he is liable to replace it with its equivalent. Thus, there is room for hesitation in this matter. In judicial cases and rulings between the usurper and the person whose property was usurped, the relevant consideration is the public interest: if the judge considers it beneficial to require the usurper to separate out the property of the person whose property was usurped, then he should do so; but if he considers the opposite to be preferable, there is no blame, since the harm in this case is evident.

His statement: “Nor is one who refuses to remove the dye to be compelled.” Who is the one refusing: the usurper or the person whose property was usurped? We do not know whether the usurped item is the dye or the garment. In either case, if it is said, “Remove the dye,” this is not possible, because once the dye has become part of the garment, it has become an attribute of it and cannot be separated from that which it qualifies. How could it be removed? It cannot—unless the garment is placed in water and the water then comes out colored with that dye, while the garment returns to its former state,