And the thief and the female thief are raised as a subject, with the predicate omitted. [Mahamud said: "They are raised as a subject, with the predicate omitted according to Sibawayh, as if..." Ahmad said: "The studied readings show that the general public never agrees to deviate from the most eloquent. It is fitting for the Qur'an to be in the most eloquent forms, and not to lack the most eloquent and what encompasses the speech of the Arabs, of which none of them has reached the peak of eloquence or clung to its edges.

And Sibawayh avoids the belief that the Qur'an is devoid of the most eloquent, and that it includes the unusual which is not considered part of the Qur'an. We present the excerpt from Sibawayh's words regarding this verse to clarify for the listener Sibawayh's innocence from the burden of this transmission. Sibawayh said—in the translation of the chapter on command and prohibition, after mentioning the places where he prefers the accusative: "In summary, whenever a noun is built on the command verb, that is a place of choosing the accusative." Then he said: "As for the distinction of this verse from those where he chose the accusative. As for His saying, the Exalted: (And the thief and the female thief, cut off...) the verse, and His saying: (The female adulterer and the adulterer, flog them...) this is not built on the verb, but it came as an example of His saying: (The example of the garden which the righteous are promised) then He said after (In it are rivers) in it such..." I said: Sibawayh intends to distinguish these verses from the places where he chooses the accusative, and the way of distinction is that in the speech where he chooses the accusative, the noun is built on the verb. As for in these verses, it is not built on it, so there is no necessity for choosing the accusative. He returned to his words. He said: "And the example was set for the speech that was mentioned after it, and he mentioned news and stories, as if he said: 'And from the stories is the example of the garden,' so it is carried on this implicitness, and Allah knows best. Likewise, the female adulterer and the adulterer when He, the Exalted, said: (A surah We have sent down and prescribed) He mentioned in the summary of the obligations (The female adulterer and the adulterer) then came (flog them) after the raising had passed. I said: Sibawayh means: The noun was not built on the mentioned verb after, but was built on a preceding omitted one, and the verb came as an addition. He returned to his words. He said: "As it came:

And the speaker said, 'Marry their girl.'

So the verb came after it had acted in the implicit. Likewise (And the thief and the female thief) and in what is prescribed for you, the thief and the female thief, for these names entered after stories and narratives. And some read (the thief and the female thief) in the accusative, and it is in Arabic as I have mentioned to you of strength, but the general public refused except the raising. I said: Sibawayh means that the reading of the accusative came with the noun built on the verb, not relying on a preceding one, so the accusative was strong relative to the raising, where the noun is built on the verb not on a preceding one, and it does not mean that it is strong relative to the raising where the noun relies on the omitted preceding, for he has clarified that this removes it from the category where the accusative is chosen. So how can it be understood that he prefers it over it, while the category with both readings is different? Preference only occurs after equality in the category, so the accusative is preferable to the raising, where the noun is built on the verb, and the raising is determined. I do not say it is preferable where the noun is built on a preceding speech, then Sibawayh confirmed this estimation by stating that the speech occurs after stories and news, and if it were as Zamakhshari thought, Sibawayh would not have needed to estimate, but he would have raised it as a subject and made the command its predicate as Zamakhshari expressed it. The summary of this is that the accusative is on one face, which is building the noun on the command verb, and the raising is on two faces: one of which is weak, which is the subject, and building the speech on the verb, and the other is strong, like the face of the accusative, which is raising it as the predicate of an omitted subject indicated by the context. And wherever we have two opposing faces in the raising, one of which is strong and the other weak, it is determined to carry the reading on the strong as Sibawayh expressed it, may Allah be pleased with him. And Allah, the Exalted, knows best.

And regarding what is prescribed for you, the thief and the female thief, what is their ruling? Another perspective is that they are raised by the beginning, and the news is: 'So cut off their hands.' The inclusion of the letter 'fa' indicates a conditional meaning, because the meaning is: 'And the one who stole and the one who stole, so cut off their hands.' The relative noun implies a conditional meaning. 'Isa ibn Umar read it in the accusative, and Sibawayh preferred it over the reading of the general public due to the command, because 'Zayd, strike him' is better than 'Zayd strike him.' (Their hands) refers to their hands, and similarly (Indeed, your hearts have deviated) suffices with the duality of the added noun without the duality of the added. The two hands refer to the right hands, as evidenced by the reading of Abdullah: 'And the male thieves and the female thieves, so cut off their right hands.' The thief in Sharia is defined as one who steals from a secure place, and the cut is at the wrist. According to the Khawarij, it is at the shoulder. The amount that necessitates cutting is ten dirhams according to Abu Hanifa, and a quarter of a dinar according to Malik and Al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on them. And according to Al-Hasan, it is one dirham. In his admonitions, he said: 'Beware of cutting your hand for a dirham.' Retribution and punishment are for both. So whoever repents from theft after his wrongdoing, after his theft, and rectifies his affairs by freeing himself from liabilities, then indeed, Allah will accept his repentance and relieve him of the punishment of the Hereafter. As for the cutting, it is not lifted by repentance according to Abu Hanifa and his companions, and according to Al-Shafi'i in one of his opinions, it is lifted by whom He wills among those who must be punished in wisdom, and forgiveness for those who persist and those who repent. It is said that the punishment of a combatant is lifted if he repents after stealing, to encourage him towards Islam and to distance him from repulsion, but it is not lifted from a Muslim: because in its establishment there is reform for the believers and life. (And there is life for you in retribution.) If you say: Why was punishment prioritized over forgiveness? I say: Because it was met with the precedence of theft over repentance.