Chapter: A Muslim’s Residence in Non-Muslim Lands and His Ransom from the Enemy’s Hands
It is unlawful for a Muslim to remain in dar al-kufr (the abode of unbelief) when he is able to leave. Nor should he marry a harbiyya (a woman from a hostile people) and then live in a land where the rule of unbelief holds sway over him.
There is no objection to an army’s staying in dar al-harb (enemy territory) while fighting its inhabitants for as long as it wishes, nor to its remaining through the winter—or even longer—so long as it is secure and hopes to prevail over them.
If a captive is released and made to swear that he will not leave their country, it remains obligatory for him to depart whenever he can; he must expiate his oath unless he was coerced into taking it. If he was coerced, no expiation is required.
Should the captive give the unbelievers a pledge that he will return to them, he must not fulfil it. On this question, and on the one before it, Malik and his associates differed; but the view we have just stated is, in our judgment, the correct one. It is the choice of the Medinese scholars among Malik’s followers and is also narrated from Malik himself.
If an enemy combatant embraces Islam while still in dar al-harb, and a Muslim unintentionally kills him before he has been able to leave, being unaware of his conversion, one opinion holds that the killer is liable for both blood-money (diyyah) and expiation, while another limits his liability to the expiation alone: freeing a believing slave; and if he cannot find one, fasting two consecutive months.
If he kills him deliberately while unaware that the man was Muslim, he is still liable for the blood-money and the expiation. Should he kill him deliberately knowing that he was Muslim, he is executed in retaliation.
When a Muslim prisoner commits an offence against another Muslim prisoner that entails a hadd (fixed corporal punishment) or qisas (retaliatory punishment), the fact that it occurred in enemy territory does not remove the liability.
If, in the heat of battle, a Muslim kills another Muslim, claiming on oath, “I thought he was one of the enemy,” he must nevertheless pay the blood-money and perform the expiation.
Whoever enters dar al-harb for trade or any other purpose and ransoms a Muslim captive from the enemy with his own money on the understanding that he will recover it from the captive, is entitled to take that amount from the captive’s property if he is