submit to Him.”

In the two Sahīh collections, Abū Hurayrah reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say:

“If someone peers into your house without your permission, and you flick a pebble at him and put out his eye, you incur no blame.”

This specific ruling clarifies the general prohibition reported in the Sahīh collection from ‘Abdullāh ibn Mughaffal, who saw a man flicking pebbles and said: “Do not flick pebbles, for the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade it.” The Prophet said: “It neither catches game nor wounds an enemy, but it can break a tooth and put out an eye.”

In the two Sahīh collections, Sahl ibn Sa‘d reported:

“A man peered through an opening in the Prophet’s door while the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was scratching his head with a hair pick. He said: ‘Had I known that you were looking at me, I would have stabbed you in the eye with it. Seeking permission to enter was prescribed precisely to prevent such looking.’”

Some scholars have considered this a case of repelling an assailant: the onlooker transgresses by looking and is therefore repelled like any other aggressor. Had the matter been as they said, he would have been repelled by the least forceful means first, resorting gradually to stronger measures; and it would not have been permissible to put out his eye at the outset if he would leave only by that means. The texts, however, contradict this, for the Prophet permitted flicking a pebble at him and putting out his eye before ordering him to leave. Likewise, he said:

“Had I known that you were looking at me, I would have stabbed you in the eye with it.”

He thus made the act of looking itself sufficient grounds for stabbing the eye, without mentioning an order to leave. This indicates that it is a punishment for that act: having committed this violation of the sanctity of the householder’s home, the householder may put out his eye with pebbles or a hair pick.