he is not subject to amputation until he takes the stolen property entirely outside the house, because the rest of the house forms part of the secure enclosure. It thus differs from a house to which access is restricted, since the latter may only be entered with its owner’s permission. He is not exempt from amputation upon leaving the house, as a guest would be according to Ibn al-Qāsim, because a guest has been personally granted permission and is therefore entrusted. According to Ibn al-Qāsim’s position, whatever the guest takes is treated as a betrayal of trust rather than theft.

As for a house shared by its occupants and open to the public, such as inns where each man occupies a separate room and the courtyard is open for buying and selling, its courtyard has the same status as that of a house to which access is restricted. Anyone who steals something from its rooms, whether an occupant or an outsider, and is caught in the courtyard is subject to amputation. There is likewise no disagreement on this.

As for a house shared by its occupants but closed to everyone else, there is no disagreement that an occupant who steals from another occupant’s room is subject to amputation if caught after taking the stolen property into the courtyard, even if he has neither taken it outside the house nor brought it into his own room. Nor is there any disagreement that an occupant who steals something from the courtyard is not subject to amputation, even if he brings it into his room or takes it outside the house. An exception is made if what he steals from the courtyard is an animal taken from its customary tethering place, or comparable heavy goods stacked upon one another: that location constitutes a secure enclosure, like the animal’s tethering place. An occupant who steals any such property is therefore treated like someone who steals from one of the rooms.

If one of the occupants of this house has a wife, and either spouse or a slave belonging to either steals the other spouse’s property from a room in the house that the other spouse has made off-limits to them or locked against them, the thief, whether spouse or slave, is likewise subject to amputation, with no disagreement on this either.

There is disagreement, however, if an outsider steals something from one of the rooms of the house and is caught in its courtyard before taking it outside, or steals something that one of those sharing the house has placed in its courtyard, such as a garment spread out there, and takes it outside the house. One view is that he is subject to amputation in both cases