—but if leaving the matter unreported would lead to harm, and the person is known for causing injury, or similar considerations make escalation advisable, then the preferable course is to report it.
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The one who borrows property and then denies having taken it is to be treated like a thief; his hand is to be amputated. The scholarly dispute on this will be presented below.
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Justice and equality among people are obligatory: rich and poor, noble and commoner alike must receive the same rulings, fixed punishments, and treatment whenever they stand on equal footing.
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Enforcing the legal limits upon the weak while suspending them for the strong is a cause of ruin, destruction, and misery in both abodes.
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It is legislatively sanctioned to swear an oath in weighty matters so as to underscore and affirm them.
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Hyperbole, analogy, and illustrative examples are permissible when they help clarify, explain, and confirm the truth.
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This incident highlights a great virtue of Usāmah, for no one was deemed more suitable than he to intercede with the Prophet ﷺ. The event occurred during the Conquest of Mecca.
Scholarly disagreement
The jurists have differed regarding the borrower who then denies the loan: should his hand be amputated or not?
The majority—including the three Imams, Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, and al-Shāfiʿī—say that his hand is not to be cut off. This is also one of the two reports from Imam Aḥmad, preferred by his students al-Khirqī, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, Ibn Qudāmah, and the author of al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, citing the Prophet’s ﷺ statement, “No hand is to be amputated for a betrayer.”
They respond to the present narration by saying that the mention of denying the loan serves only to identify the woman, not to indicate that her hand was cut for that reason; the amputation was for theft, which is why the wording “theft” appears in the report.
They have offered other replies as well, but none are convincing.
The second report from Imam Aḥmad is that the borrower who denies the loan is to have his hand amputated, and this is the authoritative position of the Ḥanbalī school.