and said: The reports concern three [bones], and the rest are analogized to them, because they are similar to them or carry an even stronger claim.
Some of our jurists held that no fixed compensation is stipulated except in cases established by a report—namely, the rib, collarbone, and forearm bone—while compensation assessed by judicial estimation applies to the rest.
Most scholars maintain that compensation assessed by judicial estimation applies in all of them. They understood what has been narrated from Umar concerning this as an assessment of value; and if it was an assessment of value, then it is judicial estimation. They said: Judicial estimation is closer to justice, so long as there is no textual ruling from the Lawgiver that must be acted upon. For fracturing a single forearm bone is not like fracturing the forearm: two camels are due for one forearm bone, and four for both bones. If the two subsidiary parts entail four camels, how can the whole—the forearm—entail anything less than four camels? And the same applies to the upper arm. Thus, the view that judicial estimation applies to these limbs is closer to justice. There is a valid basis for understanding what has been narrated from the Commander of the Believers, may Allah be pleased with him, as an assessment of value: perhaps Umar considered judicial estimation in that time to be equivalent to two camels in this case, and so he said, “Two camels are due for it.”
Even assuming that it was not an assessment of value, but rather a ruling received from revelation, then this action of Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, indicates that it has a basis in the sunnah. Accordingly, one should confine oneself to what is established by the text, while compensation assessed by judicial estimation remains applicable to the rest. But to say that fracturing the thigh is like fracturing one of the two forearm bones, such that only two camels are due for it—this view has an obvious weakness.
The sounder view, in my opinion, in this matter is that compensation assessed by judicial estimation applies in all of these cases, and that what has been narrated from Umar should be understood as an assessment of value,