and a blow. This is the view of many of the early scholars, and Ahmad explicitly affirmed it in the report transmitted by Ismāʿīl ibn Saʿīd al-Shālanjī, which al-Jawzajānī explained in his book entitled al-Mutarjim. A group of jurists said:

“Exact equality is unattainable in such cases, so recourse must be had to discretionary punishment.”

They may be answered as follows:

What the transmitted reports establish is precisely what sound analogy requires. Discretionary punishment is a penalty whose kind, manner, and degree are not fixed; these are left to the ruler’s judgment. Clearly, ordering a blow that approximates the offender’s blow—even if its exact equality cannot be established—is closer to justice and equivalence than imposing an entirely unmeasured punishment that differs from it in kind and manner.

Know that an equivalent in every respect is unattainable even for commodities measured by volume, let alone other things. If someone destroys a sāʿ of wheat and compensates for it with another sāʿ of wheat, it cannot be known that the two measures contain exactly the same quantity of grain; indeed, one may contain more than the other. Hence Allah Most High says:

“Give full measure and weight with justice. We do not burden any soul beyond its capacity.”

Achieving exactness in measuring and weighing may be beyond human ability. Thus, when equivalence in every respect cannot be attained, one says, “This is a closer equivalent than that,” meaning that it more closely approximates an exact equivalent.

The third principle:

If someone mutilates his slave, the slave thereby becomes free. This is the position of Mālik, Ahmad, and others. Reports to this effect have been traced back to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and have also been transmitted from his Companions, such as ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, as has been mentioned elsewhere