usually carries only part of his wealth. This is the correct view, particularly in the case of these organized gangs whom ordinary people in Syria and Egypt call al-minsar and who were known in Baghdad as al-ayyārīn. Even if they fight with sticks or stones thrown by hand or with slings and the like, they are still brigands.
Some jurists are reported to have held that brigandage can only be committed with edged weapons. Others have reported a consensus that it can be committed with either edged or blunt weapons. Whether or not there is disagreement on this, the correct view, held by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, is that anyone who fights to seize property, by whatever means of fighting, is a brigand and highway robber. Likewise, any disbeliever who fights Muslims, by whatever means of fighting, is a belligerent; and any Muslim who fights the disbelievers with a sword, spear, arrow, stones, or a stick is fighting in Allah’s cause.
As for someone who kills people secretly to seize their property—for example, someone who rents out an inn to travellers, then kills some of them and takes their property when he is alone with them; or someone who invites into his home a person he has hired for tailoring, medical treatment, or the like, then kills him and takes his property—this is called murder by treachery. Some ordinary people call such killers al-mu‘arrijīn. If their purpose is to seize property, are they treated as brigands, or are they subject to the law of retribution? The jurists hold two views on this.
The first is that they are treated as brigands, because killing through deception is like killing by force: neither can be guarded against. Indeed, the harm of the former may be greater, because one does not