But if the transgressor exercises scholarly judgment and acts on an interpretation, without realizing that he is transgressing, but instead believes himself to be right—even though that belief is mistaken—calling him a “transgressor” does not establish that he has sinned, much less that he is defiantly disobedient. Those who hold that transgressors acting on an interpretation should be fought say: “Although we are commanded to fight them, we fight them to ward off the harm of their transgression, not to punish them, but to prevent aggression.”
They maintain that such people retain their moral uprightness and are not deemed defiantly disobedient. They say that they are like those who are not legally accountable: children, the insane, the forgetful, the unconscious, and the sleeping are restrained from aggression so that they do not commit it. Indeed, even animals are restrained from aggression.
The explicit text of the Quran requires anyone who kills a believer by mistake to pay blood money, although he incurs no sin thereby. The same applies to someone liable to a prescribed punishment who is brought before the ruler and repents after being apprehended: the ruler still carries out the prescribed punishment upon him, although one who repents of a sin is like one who has no sin. A transgressor acting on an interpretation is subject to flogging according to Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad. There are numerous comparable cases.
Even assuming that the “transgression” is not based on an interpretation, it is a sin, and the punishment for sins can be removed through various means: good deeds that erase sins, afflictions that expiate them, and other means.
Furthermore, the statement, “Indeed, ‘Ammār will be killed by the transgressing faction,” does not explicitly state that this wording refers to Mu‘āwiyah and his companions. Rather, it may refer to the band that charged at him and killed him, which was one group within the army. Whoever approved of ‘Ammār’s killing would come under the same ruling as that group. It is well known that