such as killing in retaliation, in self-defense, or when the ruler executes the person from whom one would inherit because he had confessed before the ruler to an offense warranting retaliation, adultery, or highway robbery. Aḥmad said, according to the reports of Abū al-Naḍr and Bakr ibn Muḥammad, concerning four men who testified against their sister that she had committed adultery: she was stoned, and they joined the people in stoning her; they are not considered killers and may inherit from her. Abū Bakr said in his book al-Khilāf: “If a just man kills a rebel in battle, they inherit from one another.” The rationale is that the legal consequences of killing are retaliation, sin, blood liability, and expiation. None of these consequences applies to a lawful killing; likewise, deprivation of inheritance does not apply.

As for fighting armed brigands and highway robbers: when a group of criminals bands together to brandish weapons, block the roads, seize property, kill people, and murder travelers, their prescribed penalties are graded according to the circumstances of their offenses, not according to differences in their status. Whoever kills and seizes property is executed and crucified. Whoever kills without seizing property is executed but not crucified. Whoever seizes property without killing has a hand and a foot amputated from opposite sides. Whoever merely brandishes weapons without seizing property is given a discretionary punishment, but is not executed. His discretionary punishment is exile from one town to another and from one village to another.