With respect to daytime, it makes no difference whether the owners themselves turn the animals loose to graze or the beasts break out and damage a crop or anything else: the owner bears no liability for any of that—unless he is actually with the animals. If he is present, able to keep them back, and yet does not do so, he is liable.

As for the night-time, whether the livestock escape on their own or are deliberately released while the owner has the power to restrain them, he must make good everything they spoil or destroy. In the daytime, however, the duty of guarding the crop rests with its cultivators. Whether the field is fenced off or left open, the owners of the livestock are accountable for the full value of whatever they ruin, the assessment being made according to the crop’s anticipated yield and the risks still hanging over it.

If an animal breaks loose at night and steps on a man’s foot, its owner owes nothing; the foregoing rulings concern crops and farmland only. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and others relate this from Mālik, and it is the settled doctrine of his school. Another opinion holds that everything livestock destroy at night must be compensated by their owners when property is involved, though not when blood-money is at stake; this, too, is narrated from Mālik and other scholars of Medina.

Should the animal have with it a rider, driver, or leader, that person is liable for whatever damage results from his own action, though not for what proceeds solely from the beast itself—we shall expand on this issue in the Book of Criminal Injuries, Allah willing.

If a camel attacks a man and the man is certain it threatens his life, so he kills it, he owes the owner nothing. If that certainty cannot be demonstrated, he must compensate for the camel. Likewise, if the owner of a rampaging camel, a vicious dog, or any dangerous beast accustomed to breaking loose and ravaging crops is forewarned but takes no action, he is liable for the resulting damage, whether it occurs by night or by day.