and say to the woman: “Come with us.” The woman is frightened and miscarries the fetus.

His statement, “The ruler and the claimant are liable for it,” means that the ruler is liable in the first case, and the claimant in the second, because he was the cause of the fetus’s death and is therefore liable.

The apparent meaning of the author’s words also indicates that even if the claimant was entitled to bring the complaint and she was in the wrong, liability rests upon the claimant.

However, this apparent meaning is open to question. If he was in the right and knew nothing of the woman’s condition, how can we hold him liable? But if he knew that this woman was among those who are easily frightened, and that he feared for her pregnancy, then it may perhaps be said that holding him liable has some basis.

His statement, “The ruler and the claimant are liable for it”: Does this not contradict the principle: “When an indirect cause and a direct agent coincide, liability rests upon the direct agent”?

Here, we have an indirect cause—the claimant—and we have the direct agents—the police officers. Yet we assign liability to the claimant, namely the indirect cause, because the direct action is based upon that cause. The police are legally commanded to respond to such claims. This is like a judge’s ruling on the testimony of witnesses who later say, “We deliberately caused his death,” and retract their testimony: liability rests upon the witnesses. Likewise here, we assign liability to the claimant, because the police officers are merely this man’s instrument.

His statement, “But if she dies from fright, they are not liable”: When the ruler’s representative, who had summoned her in order to establish a right due to Allah, came to her, she was frightened and died immediately. Neither of them is liable.