it has reached me that the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said, “Whoever kills an enemy combatant is entitled to his personal effects, except on the day of Ḥunayn.” He went on, “I have not come across any report that the two caliphs after him acted upon this,” and he added, “Had a nafl (bonus allotment) been promised before the fighting, the battle would have been for worldly gain.” He also said, “Nor has it reached me that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—ever declared, ‘Whoever kills a combatant is entitled to his personal effects,’ except after the fighting had cooled down.”

Some scholars of Medina and other people of the Ḥijāz nevertheless consider it permissible, on the basis of discretionary judgment (ijtihād), to grant a nafl both after the booty has been secured and before it—whether at the first engagement or on the return.

In their view nafl takes two forms:

1. The personal effects (salab) of the slain enemy are awarded to his killer. They hold that the imam may announce this before the battle because of the encouragement it provides; likewise, the imam may, during the fighting, grant some other form of nafl to anyone whose valor he observes, and the like.

2. The imam may proclaim at the outset: “Whoever does such-and-such shall receive a quarter—or a third—of what he captures after the khums has been set aside,” as an incentive to fight. Mālik rules this invalid, because in his view no nafl may be given except out of the khums. We have clarified this entire issue in our book al-Tamhīd.