its fruit, is its owner liable or not? The apparent meaning of the author’s words is that its owner is not liable, neither at night nor during the day, because he restricted the ruling to crops. On this issue, the scholars have three views:

The first is that it applies exclusively to crops, as is apparent from the author’s wording, and this is what the hadith indicates.

The second is that it applies exclusively to crops and to fruit growing within walled gardens, because fruit in walled gardens is akin to crops. Customarily, people guard their crops and fruit during the day and sleep at night, just as livestock owners customarily keep their animals secured at night and release them during the day to graze.

The third is that whatever livestock destroy—whether crops, fruit, property, or anything else—takes the same ruling as crops. This is the established position of the school. Accordingly, if livestock cause damage at night, their owners are liable; but if they cause damage during the day, their owners bear no liability. The evidence for this is the generality of the Prophet’s statement, peace and blessings be upon him: “Damage caused by an untended animal is not subject to compensation” (1). An untended animal means livestock, and “not subject to compensation” means that its loss is waived. We hold its owner liable at night by analogy with crops, because the effective cause is the same: livestock owners keep their animals secured at night and release them during the day to graze. This view is more correct. Thus, if a person had sacks of wheat beside his house and livestock came and ate them,