Thus, if a person gouges out the eye of a one-eyed man so that he loses his sight, he owes a full blood-money, because he has deprived him of the faculty of sight. It is true that a single eye entails only half the blood-money, but that is not merely because it is one eye; rather, it is because he has deprived him of the faculty of sight, and so the full blood-money is due. This view is correct, although some scholars have taken the general ruling—that one eye entails half the blood-money—and regarded the loss of his entire sight as consequential to the eye.

Issue: If a man can hear only from one side, and someone assaults him so that he loses his hearing altogether, what is due?

The established school holds that half the blood-money is due. But upon reflection, one finds no difference between this case and that of the one-eyed person.

If they say: The difference is that when a person hears with only one ear, he cannot hear you if you speak on his other side. Thus, if he wishes to hear you, he must turn his neck, or say, “Come to the other side.” This differs from the case of the one-eyed person.

The response is that the same applies to the one-eyed person: if someone comes from his left while his left eye cannot see, he will not notice him. Therefore, there is no difference between the two cases.

Some scholars cited as evidence that if someone looks through an opening in a house, his eye may be gouged out without warning. It is authentically established in al-Bukhari and Muslim that a man looked through a hole in the door of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had a small comb with which he was scratching his head. When he saw him, he ﷺ said: “Had I known that you were