a place where he had not been entrusted with the property—without the act amounting to mere pilfering (ikhtilās) or open aggression (mukābara)—is deemed a thief. If the perpetrator is legally accountable, whether free or enslaved, Muslim or non-Muslim, male or female, and the amount stolen in gold equals at least one quarter-dinar—whether the gold is jewellery, minted coin, or raw nuggets—or the amount in silver equals three dirhams by weight, whether in clipped pieces, whole coins, crafted items, or bullion; or the value of any other lawful commodity that may be owned or sold reaches three dirhams by weight, then the ḥadd of amputation becomes mandatory once the stolen item has been removed from its secure place. According to Mālik, the valuation is reckoned by the standard of three dirhams, not a quarter-dinar, and it is assessed on the day of the theft, not on the day the punishment is carried out.

No amputation is prescribed for a pilferer, a plunderer, a usurper, or one who betrays a trust—for example, a man who is admitted into another’s house as a guest or to fulfil a need and then steals; nor for a borrower, a deposit-keeper, an employee, a business partner, or a man’s slave who steals from the property of his master, his master’s son, wife, or relatives living with him. The exception is where a husband keeps something hidden from his wife under lock and key, or she does the same with some of her own property; if either of them breaks that lock and takes an amount that reaches the threshold for amputation, the hand is cut according to Mālik. Whatever incurs the ḥadd for the husband stealing from his wife likewise incurs it for each spouse’s slave in relation to the other spouse.

Anything kept communally within the household other than this does not entail amputation for a slave who steals from his master’s wife, just as it does not entail it for the master himself. A guest, however, who steals from property kept under the host’s lock and protection—something he was not entrusted with—has his hand cut, just as Abū Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) ordered with his guest when he had the latter’s hand amputated. Likewise