His servant, nor has He forbidden what necessity compels His servant to do.

Another example is the claim made by some concerning the authentic hadith:

“A pledged animal may be ridden and milked, and whoever rides and milks it must bear the cost of its upkeep.”

They claim that this runs contrary to analogical reasoning, but that is not so. When the pledged property is an animal, it is entitled to protection in its own right, and both its owner and the pledgee have rights in it. If it is in the pledgee’s possession and he neither rides nor milks it, its benefits go to waste. We have already explained that milk is treated as a benefit derived from the animal. Thus, if the pledgee enjoys its benefits and compensates for them by paying for its upkeep, both interests and both sets of rights are upheld. The animal’s upkeep is obligatory upon its owner. When the pledgee pays for it, he discharges an obligation on the owner’s behalf, while also having a right in the animal. He is therefore entitled to reimbursement. The animal’s benefits can serve as compensation, so making use of them is better than allowing them to be lost to their owner and go to waste.

The jurists have disagreed about someone who discharges another person’s obligation without his permission, such as paying his debt. Mālik’s position, and Ahmad’s according to the well-known report from him, is that he may seek reimbursement from that person. Abū Hanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī hold that he may not.

If someone pays maintenance that the other person is obliged to provide—for example, by providing for that person’s young child or slave—some scholars of Ahmad’s school say that he may not seek reimbursement, distinguishing maintenance from debt. The discerning scholars of his school, however, treated the two alike, saying that both are obligations. Even if he were to ransom him