Amn (security of person, property and faith, and the ruler's duty to keep it)

Amn is the opposite of fear: the absence of an expected harm in the time to come, and the jurists keep the lexical meaning. ¹ Related terms are aman, the contract of abstaining from fighting unbelievers, temporary or permanent, for one or more; khawf, fear; and ihsar, being prevented by an enemy from completing the rites of hajj or umra. ¹²

Security for the person, the community and the state is among the most necessary foundations of life. ² Al-Mawardi held that the imamate is to succeed the Prophet ﷺ in guarding the religion and governing the world, and lists the duties of the imam: guarding the religion, enforcing rulings, protecting the realm, enforcing penalties, fortifying the frontiers, fighting those who oppose Islam, collecting the fay' and alms, setting stipends, appointing trustworthy agents, and attending to affairs in person. ²³

Security means the safety of life, property, honour, religion and reason, the necessities of life. The jurists agree that a person's safety is a condition of the obligation to worship. ³

• Purity: one who fears death from using water, from an enemy, a thief, a beast, a wound or an illness makes tayammum, citing the verses of al-Nisa and the words "do not kill yourselves". ³
• Prayer: facing the qibla lapses under fear of an enemy or a beast, citing the saying "if I command you something, do as much of it as you can". ³⁴
• Congregation: lapses for fear to life, property or honour, citing the report of Ibn Abbas on fear and illness as excuses. ⁴
• Pilgrimage: not obligatory on one who fears for his life, property or honour from an enemy, a beast or a thief. ⁴

• Lodging: a husband must lodge his wife, and the lodging must be safe for her person and property; if he treats her badly, the judge lodges her beside a trustworthy neighbour. ⁵⁶
• Retaliation below the level of killing requires that the like can be taken without excess or spread of harm; it is delayed in extreme heat or cold, illness, or pregnancy. ⁶
• Flogging as a penalty is not carried out where death is feared; not in extreme heat or cold, not on the sick until recovery, not on a pregnant woman until she delivers. ⁶
• Travel with partnership or profit-sharing capital on an unsafe road needs the partner's leave; with a deposit, the Hanafis and Hanbalis hold that it is forbidden on an unsafe road, and the Shafi'is and Malikis require return of the deposit to its owner. ⁷
• A loan made on condition that it is repaid in another town, to avoid the danger of the road, is forbidden by most jurists; the Malikis allow it in general danger, and the Hanbalis allow it in the sounder view. ⁷⁸

• The sanctuary was a place of safety for its people and for those who took refuge there; the Prophet declared it sacred until the Day of Resurrection. ⁸
• A Muslim's life and property are protected, following the saying "I am commanded to fight people until they say there is no god but God". ⁸⁹
• Aman for unbelievers is of two kinds: one granted by the imam or his deputy, either temporary as a truce, or permanent as the covenant of protection on paying the poll-tax, citing the verse on fighting those who do not believe until they pay the poll-tax; and one granted by an individual Muslim to a limited number, citing the hadith that believers' blood is equal and the least of them may give protection. ⁹