If it is said: How can neither of them be liable when, had it not been for the ruler’s representative, she would not have died?

The answer is that such an occurrence does not ordinarily result in death, and whatever is not customary entails no liability. This is like entering upon someone and greeting him when he is exceedingly awed by you: when you shake his hand, he dies. In that case, you are not liable for him, because it is not customary for a person to die as a result of such an act.

There is another view—the position of the madhhab—that both of them are liable, because she perished as a result of them. But this is answered by what has preceded: such an act is not a cause of death at all, and people customarily do such things.

“Whoever instructs a legally accountable person to descend into a well or climb a tree, and he perishes as a result, is not liable for him, ……”

His statement, “Whoever instructs a legally accountable person to descend into a well or climb a tree, and he perishes as a result, is not liable for him.”

The words “a person” mean either male or female.

“Legally accountable” means an adult of sound mind.

“Is not liable for him” means that the one giving the instruction is not liable.

Thus, if someone instructs a legally accountable person to descend into a well, and when he descends his foot slips, so that he falls into the well and dies, the one who instructed him bears no liability. This is because the person descending is an adult of sound mind, who knows what benefits him and what does not, and he was able to say, “I will not descend”—unless the one giving the instruction knew that there was something in the well that could cause death and did not inform him of it; for example, if the well was smooth-sided, so that a person could not descend into it, but he did not tell him so. In that case, he is liable, because he deceived him,