An example of joint conspiracy is where they say: “This man has a great deal of wealth; let us kill him and take his money.” One of them then says: “You sit in this place as a lookout, and you in that other place as a lookout; one of us will sharpen the knife, and another will kill him.” In this case, they have jointly conspired to kill him.

An example where they have not jointly conspired, but each person’s act is sufficient to kill him, is that some people intend to attack someone in order to kill him and take his wealth, without any of them being aware of the others. Yet Allah Most High decrees that they all come at night, and each one shoots the man: one strikes him in the abdomen, another in the chest, and another in the back. The man dies, so all of them are executed, because the act of each one of them would warrant retaliation if he had acted alone.

If four people wound him without any prior agreement, and a fifth merely pokes him, then the four are executed, whereas the fifth—the one who poked him—is not executed, because his act would not have been sufficient to kill if he had acted alone.

His statement, “If retaliation is waived,” means that retribution is waived for any reason whatsoever.

His statement, “They must pay a single blood money payment,” means, for example, that the heirs of the slain person say: “We do not want these people to be executed; rather, we want the blood money.” They are then liable for a single blood money payment. Thus, if they are ten people and the blood money is one hundred camels, each one of them must pay ten camels. The difference between blood money and execution is that blood money is divisible, so each person can be assigned a portion of it, whereas execution is not divisible.

The author then mentioned issues that resemble joint participation, but are not cases of joint participation, saying: