Chapter on the Ḥadd for Theft

Introduction

The Arabs say: saraqa yasriqu saraqan—“he stole, he steals, a theft”; the perpetrator is a sāriq (thief), the item is masrūq (stolen), and its owner is masrūq minhu (the one stolen from).

Linguistically, theft is the taking of property furtively and by stratagem.

In the Sharʿī sense it is: the clandestine removal of another person’s protected wealth from a place normally secured for it, when the taker has no legal claim to it.

Hence amputation is not carried out on the open plunderer (muntahib), the snatcher (mukhtalis), the embezzler (khāʾin), one who denies a deposit entrusted to him, or any similar breach of trust, because these acts do not come under the preceding definition.

The authority for cutting off the thief’s hand is found in the Qur’an, the Sunnah, scholarly consensus, and analogical reasoning.

From the Qur’an: “As for the male thief and the female thief, cut off their hands as a requital for what they have earned and a deterrent from Allah. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise” (5:38).

From the Sunnah: the hadiths that will follow.

The scholars unanimously agreed upon this ruling on the strength of these texts.

As for analogy: both analogical deduction and sound wisdom require the enforcement of all the ḥudūd, just as Allah, exalted is He, has commanded,