Mālik’s principal proof is that two separate rights are involved: a right belonging to God and a right belonging to a human being. One of them does not nullify the other. The model case is theft, for which—according to his school—both restitution of the stolen property and amputation of the hand are jointly required.

Those who do not impose the dower advance two arguments.

First: when a divine right and a human right converge, the human right is eclipsed by the divine right. This is the position of the Kufan jurists, who hold that a thief is not simultaneously burdened with both restitution and amputation.

Second: the dower is not a purchase price for the woman’s genitalia; rather, it is a devotional payment attached to a lawful marriage contract. If the union is outside the bounds of the Sharīʿah, then no dower is due.

A celebrated question in this chapter concerns a man who seizes a column, builds upon it, and erects a structure whose standing value is many times that of the column itself. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī rule that the usurper must demolish the building and return the column to its owner. Abū Ḥanīfah, however, contends that the column is deemed lost and must be compensated for at its market value—just as Mālik rules when the usurped item has been transformed by craftsmanship that adds great worth—whereas al-Shāfiʿī maintains that no amount of added value ever causes the usurped property to be forfeited.

Here ends this Book.