by violating another’s rights is sheer injustice. If no one may take food from a person who desperately needs it to sustain himself, then no one may kill another to preserve his own life. Rather, this is injustice and aggression, warranting retaliatory execution of both the coercer and the coerced person according to Ahmad’s school and the well-known position in al-Shāfiʿī’s school, since both participate in the act: one directly commits the forbidden act, while the other brings it about through a cause that ordinarily leads to it. Another view holds that only the unjust coercer is liable, because the coerced person has become like an instrument. This is Abū Hanīfa’s position. The reverse has also been maintained; this is Zayd’s position. It is an unsound view, for it considers the outward aspect of direct commission or causation. This discussion concerns a coerced person who acts with a will that he has been compelled to exercise.

Thus, it is valid to say that this coerced person acts with will and choice, and it is also valid to say that he has no choice. A person who chooses possesses choice and will, whereas this coerced person’s own will and choice are not to perform the act he has been compelled to perform. However, when the torment inflicted upon him forces him to develop another choice and another will, by which he performs what he has been compelled to do, it is valid to affirm that he possesses choice and will with regard to what coercion has produced in him. It is equally valid to deny him these, considering that, in