are not held liable, then Muslims acting on a religious interpretation have even greater reason not to be held liable.

The verse also indicates that this liability rests upon the group as a whole, with those providing support and those directly responsible equally liable. They are not told, “Find out who killed your companion and demand his blood-money from him.” Rather, they are told, “His blood-money is due from all of you, for you all killed him.” This is because the direct perpetrator was only able to act through the assistance of those supporting him. This is also indicated by His words:

“And if any of your wives have left you for the disbelievers and you subsequently obtain [something], then give those whose wives have left the equivalent of what they had spent.”

Those disbelievers owed the equivalent of the dower of the woman who had gone over to them. If they did not pay it, it could be taken from whatever property of theirs the Muslims could obtain. An example is a woman who comes from among them and whose dower they are entitled to reclaim. The Muslim then pays the husband of that apostate woman the equivalent of her dower out of the dower owed for this Muslim emigrant woman, which the disbelievers are entitled to receive. By embracing Islam and emigrating, she has deprived her husband of his conjugal rights, just as the apostate woman has deprived her husband of his conjugal rights. This applies even if the emigrant woman’s husband is not the man who married the apostate woman, because a group possessing the power to resist, whose members protect one another, is treated as a single person.

Thus, when Khālid killed those whom he killed from Banū Jadhīma, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, paid their blood-money from his own resources. Khālid was his deputy, and he would not allow them to demand payment from Khālid or detain him, since he had acted on a religious interpretation. The same applies to ʿAmr ibn Umayya, for whose blood-money Khālid ibn al-Walīd was liable, because he committed this killing in the course of jihad, not out of personal enmity. Jurists have differed over liability for a ruler’s error: does it fall upon the public treasury or upon him personally? There are two views.