They also cite ʿUmar’s statement: “I am the one most bound to keep his covenant.”

They argue that this narration qualifies the Prophet’s general words—peace and blessings be upon him—“A believer is not put to death for an unbeliever,” restricting the latter to a belligerent unbeliever and excluding the treaty-bound unbeliever. The ḥadīth scholars, however, judge the report of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Silmānī—and what is transmitted from ʿUmar on the matter—to be weak.

From the angle of analogical reasoning, they build on the unanimous agreement that a Muslim’s hand is amputated if he steals from a dhimmī’s property. They say: when his property enjoys the same inviolability as a Muslim’s property, his blood must likewise enjoy the same inviolability. Thus the dispute arises from a clash between transmitted evidence and analogy.

Executing a group for killing a single person: the overwhelming majority of jurists across the regions—Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, al-Thawrī, Aḥmad, Abū Thawr, and others—hold that the group is to be executed, whether they are many or few. ʿUmar espoused this view as well; it is reported that he said, “Had all the people of Ṣanʿāʾ conspired to kill him, I would have executed them all.”

Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī and the literalists (Ahl al-Ẓāhir) maintain that a group is not executed for one person; this is also related from Ibn al-Zubayr, al-Zuhrī, and Jābir. The same school holds that several hands are not amputated for one hand—that is, when two or more individuals jointly destroy a single hand. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī disagree, ruling that multiple hands are amputated in return for one. The Ḥanafīs distinguish between life and limbs: multiple lives may be taken for one life, but in the case of limbs only a single limb may be amputated, a topic that will return in the chapter on retaliation for bodily injury.

Those who execute the group for a single victim base their ruling on considerations of public interest. Retaliation was legislated to eliminate killing, as the Qurʾān signals:
“Within prescribed retaliation there is life for you, O people of insight” (al-Baqarah 2:179).
Had a group not been liable to execution for one victim, people could exploit the loophole by committing murder collectively. An objector may reply that such manipulation would arise only if none of the group actually struck the fatal blow; but if one member did so, and his act is the one most likely to cause death, the prescribed penalty need not be set aside in a way that would encourage further bloodshed.

Those who limit execution to “one life for one life” rely on the divine statement:
“We ordained for them therein: a life for a life, an eye for an eye …” (al-Māʾidah 5:45).

Executing a male for killing a female: Ibn al-Munḏir and others who survey the disagreement report a consensus permitting it, except for what is attributed to ʿAlī among the Companions and to ʿUthmān al-Battī, who held that if a man is executed for a woman, the woman’s heirs must pay half the blood money. Judge Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī relates in al-Muntaqā that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī maintained that a male is not executed for a female; al-Khaṭṭābī cites the same view in Maʿālim al-Sunan. Though anomalous, the position rests on strong evidence, for he says