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Retaliation in kind for bodily injuries is also established by the Quran, the Sunnah, and scholarly consensus, provided that equivalence can be maintained. If someone severs another person’s right hand at a joint, the victim is entitled to have the offender’s hand severed in the same manner. If he knocks out his tooth, the victim is entitled to have the offender’s tooth knocked out. If he wounds his head or face, exposing the bone, the victim is entitled to have an equivalent wound inflicted upon him.

If equivalence cannot be maintained—for example, where someone fractures an internal bone or inflicts a head wound that falls short of exposing the bone—retaliation is not prescribed. Instead, the prescribed indemnity or compensation for the injury is due.

As for retaliation for blows inflicted with the hand, a stick, or a whip—such as slapping someone, punching him, or striking him with a stick and the like—a group of scholars maintain that retaliation does not apply. Rather, discretionary punishment is imposed, because equivalence cannot be maintained in such cases.

What is transmitted from the Rightly Guided Caliphs and other Companions and Successors, however, is that retaliation is prescribed in these cases. This is also the explicit position of Ahmad and other jurists, and it is established by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. This is the correct view.

Abū Firās related that Umar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him, delivered a sermon, and reported among his words:

“Take heed! By Allah, I do not send my officials to you to beat you, nor