Subsidiary Issue
When the competitors split into two teams, is numerical parity required, or is it permissible for one side to have, say, two members while the other has three? Our scholars have recorded two possibilities (1). The argument for requiring equal numbers is that fairness is more readily secured through parity. The argument for waiving that requirement is that a single member of one team may match several members of the other in skill, so the division remains balanced.

It is, however, a condition that the two sides be equivalent in both marksmanship and equipment. Thus one side’s arrows may not be of a hard material while the other’s are soft, nor may one side shoot reed shafts while the other uses khalanj wood (3). The same applies to bows: one team may not use Arabian bows while the other wields Persian bows—though another opinion (5) allows a contest between the two types of bows.

Subsidiary Issue
The number of shots agreed upon must be such that it can be divided among the participants without leaving a remainder (6), and the two sides must share equally in that number: