and the grandsons.

Abū Ḥanīfah, however, maintains that no amputation is carried out on anyone who is related to the victim by a degree of kinship that makes marriage permanently unlawful. Abū Thawr holds that the hand of every thief is to be cut off, except in the cases that the consensus of the scholars has expressly exempted.

They also disagreed about one who steals from the community’s flock or from the public treasury (Bayt al-Māl). Mālik rules that his hand is to be severed, whereas ʿAbd al-Malik—one of Mālik’s own companions—rules that it is not. This, then, concludes their discussion of the kinds of property that make the penalty for this crime obligatory.

What is obligatory When all the requisite conditions we have mentioned are present—those pertaining to the thief, the stolen object, and the manner of theft—the jurists agree that, inasmuch as theft is a ḥadd-offense, the prescribed punishment is amputation, and that financial compensation (ghurm) is due whenever amputation is not required.

They then differed over whether compensation can be combined with amputation. One group said that the thief is liable for compensation in addition to amputation; this is the position of al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, al-Layth, Abū Thawr, and others. Another group said that no compensation is owed if the owner no longer finds his property intact; among those who said this are Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Thawrī, Ibn Abī Laylā, and others. Mālik and his school made a distinction: if the thief is solvent, he is pursued for the value of what he stole; if insolvent, he is not pursued for it even should he later become wealthy. Ibn al-Qāsim reports that Mālik stipulates continued solvency up to the day the hand is cut.

Those who combine both penalties argue that two rights converge in theft: a right of Allah and a right of a human being; each right therefore claims its due. Moreover, since the scholars unanimously agree that when the stolen object itself is recovered it is taken from the thief, it follows that if it is not found with him he must be liable for its value, by analogy with other financial obligations.

The Kufans base their view on the ḥadīth of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, in which the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “The thief is not liable for compensation once the ḥadd has been enforced upon him.” This ḥadīth, however, is judged weak by the experts in ḥadīth; Abū ʿUmar says it is mursal, although some have transmitted it with a connected chain, and al-Nasāʾī recorded it.

The Kufans further contend that combining two rights in a single claim conflicts with legal principles, and they argue that the amputation takes the place of compensation. From this they hold that if someone steals a given item, has his hand cut for it, and then steals it again, no second amputation is imposed. As for Mālik’s differentiation, it is an exercise of juristic preference (istiḥsān) that departs from strict analogy.

As for the amputation itself, the discussion concerns both its locus and the case of a thief in whom that locus is missing. The locus of cutting, by consensus, is the right hand at the wrist, and that is the view of the majority. Some, however, say that only the fingers are to be cut.

If a person whose right hand has already been severed for theft steals again, the scholars disagreed about what is to be done. The jurists of the Hijaz and Iraq say that his left foot is cut after the right hand. Some literalists and some of the Successors say that the left hand is cut after the right, and that nothing further is taken from him.