its value reaches the blood money of a free person or exceeds it, then Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, went to the view that he is liable for his value, regardless of how much it reaches, even if it reaches [the amount of] multiple blood monies, whether the killing was intentional or by mistake, and whether he guaranteed it through seizure (yad) or through criminal act (jinayah). This is the view of Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, al-Hasan, Ibn Sirin, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Iyas ibn Mu'awiyah, al-Zuhri, Makhul, Malik, al-Awza'i, al-Shafi'i, Ishaq, and Abu Yusuf. Al-Nakha'i, al-Sha'bi, al-Thawri, Abu Hanifah, and Muhammad said: It does not reach the blood money of a free person. Abu Hanifah said: It is reduced from the blood money of a free person by one dinar or ten dirhams, [which is] the amount for which a thief's hand is cut off. This applies if he is liable through a criminal act. If he is liable through seizure, such as by usurping a slave who then dies in his possession, then his value is required even if it exceeds the blood money of a free person. They argued that it is the guarantee of a human being, so it does not exceed the blood money of a free person, like the guarantee of a free person. This is because when Allah the Almighty mandated a blood money for a free person that does not increase—and he is nobler because he is free from the deficiency of slavery—it was an indication that the blood money of the deficient slave should not be exceeded. Thus, we make the monetary value of the slave a standard for the required amount, as long as it does not exceed the blood money. If it exceeds it, we know that is incorrect, so we return it to the blood money of a free person, just like the indemnity (arsh) for a wound less than a mudi'ah (a wound exposing the bone), where the amount determined by the authority is required, as long as it does not exceed the indemnity of the mudi'ah, in which case we return it to that. Our argument is that he is a property with a price (mal mutaqawwam), so he is guaranteed by his full value, however much it reaches, like a horse, or he is guaranteed by his value, so the entire value is [due], just as if he guaranteed it through seizure. It differs from the free person, as he is not guaranteed by value; rather, he is guaranteed by what the Sharia has determined, so it does not exceed it. Furthermore, the guarantee of a free person is not a property guarantee, which is why it does not vary based on his attributes, whereas this is a property guarantee that increases with the increase of the monetary value and decreases with its decrease, so they differ. Abu al-Khattab narrated another opinion from Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, that the slave's [value] does not reach the blood money of a free person. The first [view] is the madhhab.