the wronged person’s right on that account. Thus, if a man’s wife commits adultery, he may accuse her of it, engage with her in the procedure of mutual imprecation, and seek to have her punished by stoning. A man other than her husband, by contrast, may not accuse her and cannot invoke mutual imprecation; rather, he incurs the prescribed punishment if he fails to produce four witnesses. Corrupting a woman’s relationship with her husband is among the gravest wrongs against him, and he considers it worse than taking his wealth. Hence, scholars unanimously agree that he may kill the other man to repel him from her if he cannot be repelled except by killing him. According to the stronger of the two views, he may kill him even if he could be repelled by lesser means. This is illustrated by the account of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him: a man came to him holding a bloodstained sword and explained that he had found another man gratifying himself between his wife’s thighs and had struck him with the sword. ʿUmar approved of what he had done, commended him, and accepted his statement that he had killed him for that reason, since the evidence supported his account.

This is comparable to someone peering into a man’s house: the householder may put out his eye immediately, without first warning him. This is the sounder of the two views, as established in the two Sahīh collections, where the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“If a man peered into your house and you put out his eye, you would incur no liability.”

He gave the same ruling concerning someone who bit another person’s hand, whereupon the latter pulled his hand away and the biter’s teeth were dislodged. This is the position of the jurists of the hadith tradition and most of the early generations. There is disagreement on both questions, but this is not the place to discuss it. The point is that someone who commits adultery with another man’s wife wrongs her husband, and the husband has a claim against him. For this reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stated: “Whoever