liability upon a borrower except one who embezzles.”

Ibn al-Athīr remarks in al-Nihāyah: that is, if he does not betray the article on loan or the deposit, he incurs no liability arising from embezzlement, and embezzlement is betrayal.

Benefit:
Many jurists—including the Hanbalīs—maintain that a borrowed item is guaranteed in every circumstance save four:

1. when the borrowed article is waqf property, because the borrower is among those entitled to benefit from it;
2. when the owner let him ride his mount purely for the sake of Allah and the animal died beneath him, for the owner himself invited him to ride it as an act of devotion;
3. when the owner’s agent loses the item, he is not liable, for he is not a borrower but the owner’s trustee;
4. when parts of the article are consumed in the normal way for which it was borrowed, for permission to use it included permission to consume those parts.

However, it has already been noted that the stronger opinion is that a borrowed item is only guaranteed if the borrower transgresses against it—either by doing what is impermissible or by neglecting what is obligatory to safeguard it.