If a person bit your hand and pulled it out with force, and his front teeth were torn out, what is your liability?

The questioner : If a person bit your hand and pulled it out of his mouth with force, and his upper and lower front teeth and canines were torn out, yes, and his mouth was left hollow, what do you say about that?

The Shaykh : He is liable for it, or is he not liable? I read that two teeth from the top and two from the bottom, four teeth, means twenty camels, because each tooth is worth five.

The questioner : Hmm?

The Shaykh : What do you say?

The questioner : He said: If you wanted to cut off my fingers.

The Shaykh : If he says they were not cut off, he says: There is no liability on this; this is safety from Allah. This falls under this category. The important thing is that this rule is important and useful for the student of knowledge: if a person destroys a thing to ward off harm from that thing, then it is

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : not liable, because he is the one who waived the sanctity of his own self. But if he destroys it to ward off harm to the destroyed thing, then he is liable for it.