and the Sunnah of his Rightly Guided Caliphs. It also safeguards the limits set by Allah Most High, which He has commanded be safeguarded. The grounds for doubt here are like those attending testimony and a confession that may be false or mistaken.

Another example is that the scholars of Medina regard “financial penalties” as lawful wherever they are established by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and that of his Rightly Guided Caliphs, just as bodily punishments are lawful wherever they are established by the Sunnah. Some Kufan scholars and their followers rejected financial penalties, claiming that they had been abrogated. But where is their evidence for that abrogation? They frequently do this when they encounter an authentic hadith that contradicts their position.

The scholars of Medina and the scholars of hadith, however, found that Prophetic traditions and transmitted reports established financial penalties just as they established bodily punishments. Examples include breaking wine jars, slitting wineskins, and burning down a wine merchant’s shop, as Moses did with the calf and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did with the idols. Likewise, he, peace be upon him, ordered ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Amr to burn the two garments dyed with safflower, and ordered his Companions to break the cooking pots containing donkey meat, before permitting them to wash the pots instead. Similarly, retaliatory punishment was doubled for someone who stole property not kept in secure custody. The hadith of ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb also mentions liability for a lost animal that has been concealed, and payment of twice the amount of blood money for a non-Muslim under Muslim protection who is killed deliberately.

Likewise, their position on “contracts and blood money” is among the soundest positions. Among