without securing it, he must pay compensation.

The Mālikīs state: a further condition of our view is that the sheep be on recognized pastureland; if they stray into cultivated ground where grazing is not permitted, their owners are liable both by night and by day.

Those who impose liability for damage caused at any time of day rest their case on fundamental legal principles: setting the animal loose is an act of aggression, and the principles unanimously require that any transgressor make restitution.

As for those who distinguish between an animal that has broken loose and one that remains under control, their reasoning is clear: a runaway beast is no longer possessed in any meaningful sense.

Accordingly, the disagreement in this chapter stems from a collision between first principles and transmitted texts, and even between the texts themselves. Put differently, legal analogy clashes with the prophetic maxim, “For a dumb animal, any injury it causes is without liability,” and it also clashes with the distinction found in the report of al-Barāʾ. Conversely, that very distinction conflicts with the maxim “For a dumb animal, any injury it causes is without liability.”

A famous question within this chapter concerns injury to particular parts of an animal. It is related that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ruled that blinding a beast in one eye obliges payment of one-quarter of its value, and he wrote to the judge Shurayḥ instructing him accordingly. This became the view of the Kufan scholars and was likewise the ruling of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

Al-Shāfiʿī and Mālik, however, hold that one must pay whatever reduction the injury causes in the animal’s market price, by analogy with wrongful damage to property.

The Kufans relied on ʿUmar’s statement—may Allah be pleased with him—and argued: when a Companion gives a legal opinion that no other Companion contests, and that opinion contradicts analogy, it must still be followed, for such a ruling can only have been received by direct prophetic instruction.

Here, then, the dispute turns on whether analogy may be set aside in favor of a Companion’s ruling.

Another issue raised in this chapter concerns a rampaging camel—or a similar animal—from which a man fears for his life and therefore kills it: is he liable for its value or not?

Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī say that no liability attaches provided it is evident that he truly feared for his life.

Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Thawrī maintain that he must pay the animal’s full value in every circumstance.

Those who absolve him of liability analogize to a man attacked by another intent on killing him: if the intended victim defends himself and, in the struggle, kills the aggressor, he is not subject to retaliation. If this exemption applies where life is at stake, it is even more appropriate with respect to property, for life is more inviolable than wealth. They further draw on the ruling that no blood-money is due for killing aggressive game within the Sacred Precinct—an argument championed by the adept jurists among al-Shāfiʿī’s followers.

Abū Ḥanīfah bases his position on the principle that property must be compensated for whenever it is taken out of necessity; the precedent is the destitute person who consumes another’s food yet remains liable for its price. Nor does a camel possess any special sanctity merely by virtue of being a living creature.

Related to this discussion is their dispute over a woman coerced into fornication: must her assailant, in addition to the prescribed ḥadd penalty, pay her dower?

Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and al-Layth rule that both the dower and the ḥadd are due.

Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Thawrī hold that only the ḥadd applies; no dower is payable. This was also the opinion of Ibn Shubruma.