unless the person fleeing has killed someone or taken property, in which case he is to be pursued, arrested, and the penalty required by his crime carried out. No coup de grâce is to be dealt to any wounded man among them, unless he has committed murder.
If they are captured and property that can be identified as belonging to a particular person is found in their possession, it is restored to its owner, and for any other property they have destroyed they must pay compensation. No blood-money is owed for those they have killed when they are seized before repenting.
The ruler may choose among the following courses of action: he may execute them, crucify them, cut off their hands and feet on opposite sides, or banish them from the land by pursuing them relentlessly until the legal penalties are enforced. Some jurists have said that banishment can be effected through imprisonment, and this is the view most commonly transmitted from Mālik. The ruler’s choice is not a matter of personal whim; it is confined to those punishments and must be proportionate to the gravity of their offense. He may not pardon any murderer among them—such a person must be put to death, whether crucified or not—nor may he pardon any one of them outright and set him free, and none of the victim’s heirs may do so either; that prerogative belongs solely to the ruler.
If a highwayman blocked the road, seized property, and shed no blood, the ruler may, at his discretion, have his right hand and left foot cut off, or put him to death. Likewise, a man who merely terrorized travelers, even though he neither killed nor stole, may be executed for having spread corruption in the land, or punished in whatever way the ruler sees fit to deter him and serve as a warning to others. But if, in the course of terrorizing the road, he has killed, then he must without fail be put to death, as stated.
Those who directly commit such crimes and those who assist them are treated alike in punishment; the ruler applies his judgment in accordance with the penalties God has stipulated in His Book, disgracing them in this world. However, if they repent—if they come forward repentant—before they are apprehended, the ruler has no authority over them. They remain liable for any property or blood they have destroyed, but the rightful heirs are free either to claim it, to pardon, or to forgo it as a gift.