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Is it sufficient for someone who bore false witness against another and caused his imprisonment, and what resulted from that of poverty and tribulation for his family, to seek forgiveness only from the wronged person, or must he also seek forgiveness from his family?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The scholars did not explicitly address the issue of seeking forgiveness from someone who was a cause of harm. What appears to be the case is that the oppressor is required to seek forgiveness from the one directly affected by their oppression. As for someone who experienced harm or injury indirectly due to a cause, that is a subsidiary to the principal. Here, the rule "If causation and direct action combine, the direct action is considered, not the causation" is relevant.

Tracking down those harmed by injustice is an unlimited task, and the forms of harm are not limited. For example, the wrongful imprisonment of a person may harm others beyond their family who dealt with them. Even if their family was not financially harmed, they may have been harmed in other ways.

If a rich man cuts off the hand of a poor man who works with his hand and supports his family, the rich man is only obligated to the victim concerning retaliation (Qisas) or blood money (Diyyah). He is not obligated to anything towards the harmed family.

This does not contradict the variation in degrees of injustice based on the resulting harm. The sin of a single transgression against one person may be greater than against another if the resulting harm to the former is less and easier to bear.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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