a Muslim or destroys his property and then embraces Islam, he incurs no liability for what he did through retaliation [or blood money] (1) or expiation, even though killing him was one of the gravest major sins. This is because he acted on an interpretive judgment, although his interpretation was invalid.

Likewise, when resisting apostates kill Muslims, they incur no liability for their deaths if they return to Islam, according to most scholars. This is the view (2) of Abū Hanīfa, Mālik, and Ahmad, although some later adherents of Ahmad’s school, such as Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (3), report it as one transmitted position, since Ahmad expressly stated that an apostate is liable for whatever he destroys after his apostasy.

This explicit statement applies to an apostate who can be apprehended, whereas the other report concerns a resisting belligerent, just as a distinction is drawn between a protected non-Muslim (4) and a belligerent. Alternatively, there may be two transmitted positions on the issue. Al-Shāfiʿī likewise held two opinions. This is the correct view, for the Companions did not hold the apostates whom al-Siddīq and the other Companions fought liable, after they returned to Islam, for the Muslims they had killed or the property they had destroyed, because they had acted on interpretive judgments.

Likewise, the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—did not hold rebels acting on interpretive judgments liable. If this (5) applies to lives and property, even though the Quran expressly makes a person liable for mistakenly destroying them, then how much more so in matters of honor (6), such as their cursing one another and declaring one another unbelievers?

It is established in the two Sahih collections, in the hadith of the Slander, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Who will excuse me for dealing with a man whose abuse of my family has come to my attention? By Allah, I have known nothing of