1021 – Ibn ʿUmar d. (Allah be pleased with him) reported: “A young boy was murdered by ghīlah, whereupon ʿUmar said, ‘Had the entire population of Ṣanʿāʾ joined in killing him, I would have executed them all for it.’” Reported by al-Bukhārī (1).

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
– ghīlah: killing someone while the victim is off guard and unsuspecting.
– Ṣanʿāʾ: the capital of Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, an ancient historic city. The city is mentioned here either because the murderers were from there or because, among the Arabs, Ṣanʿāʾ is proverbially cited to indicate a large population.

Points derived from the ḥadith
1 – ʿUmar’s words, “Had the people of Ṣanʿāʾ all conspired in it, I would have killed them for it,” demonstrate that a group may be executed for killing a single person. This is the position of the vast majority of scholars.
Ibn al-Qayyim said: “The Companions and the great mass of jurists agreed that everyone involved is put to death for one victim, even though the basic rule of retributive execution would normally prevent that, so that the absence of qiṣāṣ will not become a pretext for collusion in bloodshed.”
Among those who hold this view are Imām Aḥmad and his followers.
Kashshāf al-Qināʿ states: “A group is executed for one victim if the act of each participant would, had he acted alone, warrant execution—and even if the individual act of each member of the group …”