amounts to one thousand mithqāls of gold or twelve thousand silver dirhams.

His statement, “and the runaway slave”: this is the slave who has fled from his owner. If someone returns him, he is entitled to one dinar or twelve silver dirhams. The evidence for this is the sunnah: the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, assigned this amount to whoever returned a runaway slave (1), and reports to this effect have also been narrated from the Companions (2).

The wisdom behind this is that a slave’s escape is no trivial matter. If he escapes and was originally a disbeliever, he may return to his homeland, the lands of disbelief, and become hostile to the Muslims. Or, if he is left to roam the land, he may become needy and spread corruption in the land through theft or other means. Therefore, the Lawgiver assigned compensation to whoever returns him, even if his master did not publicly announce such a reward.

Two further cases are also excepted:

First: whoever saves the property of one whose wealth is inviolable from destruction is entitled to the customary wage. For example, if he sees that a fire has reached a person’s belongings and saves them, he is to be given the customary wage. This is in order to encourage people to save the property of those whose wealth is inviolable from destruction; for if we were to say that he is given nothing because he