knowledge. If they seize property, his hand and foot are to be cut off. If they kill and seize property, he is to be put to death and crucified. According to a group of scholars, he is to undergo amputation, be put to death, and be crucified. It has also been said that a choice may be made between these two penalties. This applies even if he had not authorized them, but, upon gaining power over them, shared in the wealth they had taken and left some claims and prescribed punishments unenforced.

Anyone who shelters a highway robber, thief, murderer, or someone else liable to a prescribed punishment or an obligation owed to Allah Most High or to another person, and prevents its lawful enforcement against him without transgression, is his accomplice in the crime. Allah and His Messenger have cursed him.

Muslim narrated in his Sahīh that ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, may Allah be pleased with him, said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Allah has cursed anyone who commits an offense or shelters an offender.”

Once the person sheltering the offender is apprehended, he is to be required to produce him or disclose his whereabouts. If he refuses, he is to be punished with imprisonment and repeated beatings until the offender can be apprehended, just as we have explained that someone who refuses to pay money he owes is to be punished. Whoever prevents a person or property from being brought forward when this is required is to be punished. Even if a man knows the whereabouts of property rightfully sought, or of a person rightfully sought, and is himself preventing access to it or him, he must disclose that information and indicate the location. He may not conceal it. This constitutes cooperation in righteousness and piety, which is obligatory.

By contrast, if the person or property is being sought unjustly, it is not permissible to disclose the whereabouts, for that constitutes cooperation in sin and aggression. Rather, one must protect that person or property, because