Ibn ʿAbbās is reported to have held that dyeing constitutes an act of irreversible loss; consequently, the usurper is bound to pay the item’s value as it stood on the very day it was seized.

Some have maintained that, should the owner refuse to reimburse the cost of the dye and the usurper refuse to pay for the cloth, the two become partners—this one owning a share equal to the value of the dye, that one a share equal to the value of the garment. Ibn al-Qāsim, however, rejects this view in the Mudawwanah (Book of Found Property), declaring that partnership is recognized only where there exists a manifest legal ambiguity.

Al-Shāfiʿī’s ruling on dyeing accords with that of Ibn al-Qāsim, save that he does allow the two to share ownership. He adds that the usurper must be ordered to remove the dye if he is able, even though the cloth be diminished thereby, and must compensate the owner for whatever loss results. The principles of the Sharīʿah require that no one may lawfully take the usurper’s property merely because of his wrongdoing—whether that property be a tangible item or a usufruct—unless someone were to invoke the Prophet’s- upon him be blessings and peace- saying, “No wrong­doer’s root enjoys any right.” Yet this statement is general; its immediate purport is that he has no right to any benefit produced by the combination of his own property with the thing he seized (i.e., the portion of his wealth that has become attached to the usurped article). Such is the obligatory ruling concerning the usurped object itself, whether or not its form has changed.

As for the revenue (ghallah) generated by the object, the Mālikī school reports two positions:

1. The yield is governed by the same rule as the usurped property.
2. Its rule differs from that of the property itself.

Those who equate the two—including Ashhab among Mālik’s companions—hold that liability for the yield accrues on the day it is taken into possession, or at whatever higher value it later attains, according to those who oblige the usurper to pay the highest market price reached after the date of usurpation rather than the item’s value on that first day.

Those who distinguish the yield from the object disagree widely over the details, though they concur on two points: (a) if the yield’s destruction is proven by evidence, the usurper bears no liability, and (b) if he merely alleges its destruction he is not believed, even when such destruction is ordinarily improbable.

These jurists divide returns into three categories:

1. Yield that issues from the usurped property in the very same species and form, such as offspring.
2. Yield that issues from the property but not in its image, such as fruit, or the milk, cheese, and wool of livestock.
3. Returns that are not generated entities but sheer usufruct, such as rentals, land revenues, and the like.

With respect to the first category—what remains in the original species and form—I know of no disagreement that the usurper must restore it, just as a suckling is returned together with its mother.