is the view of most scholars. Any highway robber who has killed is therefore to be executed by the ruler as a prescribed legal punishment. Under no circumstances may he be pardoned, by the consensus of the scholars, as Ibn al-Mundhir stated (1). His case is not left to the victim’s heirs. This differs from a man who kills another because of enmity or a dispute between them, or for some similar personal reason. In such a case, the decision concerning the killer rests with the victim’s heirs: if they wish, they may have him executed (2); if they wish, they may pardon him; and if they wish, they may accept the blood money, because he killed him for a personal reason.

Highway robbers, however, kill only to seize people’s property, so the harm they cause is general, like that caused by thieves. Their execution is therefore a prescribed punishment due to Allah. This is agreed upon among the jurists.

Even when the victim is not legally equivalent to the killer—for example, when the killer is free and the victim a slave; when the killer is a Muslim and the victim a non-Muslim under covenant or safe-conduct (3); or when the victim is the killer’s child (4)—the jurists have differed over whether the killer is to be executed for committing highway robbery. The stronger view is that he is to be executed, as held by Mālik, by Ahmad in one of the two reports from him (5), and by al-Shāfi‘i in one of his positions (6). This is because he is executed as a prescribed punishment for causing general corruption, just as his hand is amputated if he seizes their property and he may be detained for failing to discharge their rights (7).