This is the person whom the jurists call an assailant: one who acts wrongfully without any claim of legal justification or authority. If he seeks property, he may be repelled (1) by whatever means are available. If he cannot be repelled except by fighting, he is to be fought (2). However, if the victim forgoes fighting and gives them some property, that is permissible.

If, however, the assailant seeks to violate another’s sexual inviolability—such as by seeking illicit intercourse with a person’s close female relatives, or demanding that a woman, an enslaved boy, or anyone else commit an indecent act with him—the victim must defend himself by whatever means are available, even if this entails killing the assailant (3). Submission is impermissible under all circumstances. This differs from property, which one may surrender, because surrendering property is permissible, whereas surrendering oneself or one’s sexual inviolability to indecency is impermissible (4).

If his objective is to kill someone, that person may defend himself. But is he required to do so? Scholars have expressed two views on this in the school of Ahmad and elsewhere (5).

This applies when the people have a ruler. If, however—Allah forbid—there is civil strife, such as when two Muslim rulers contend with one another and fight for sovereignty, then if one of them enters the territory of the other and fighting breaks out, may a person defend himself amid the civil strife, or must he submit and refrain from fighting in it (6)? There are two views among the scholars of Ahmad’s school