To Retaliate and Offset for Debts

3. A number of our people have narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from ibn Mahbub Sayf ibn ‘Amirah from abu Bakr al-Hadramiy who has said the following: “This is concerning my question before abu ‘Abd Allah عليه السلام, about the case of a man who has a certain amount of property with another person who denies the existence of such thing with him and goes away with it. Later a certain amount of the property of this person comes in the control of the first one; Can he offset his property for what has come in his control? He (the Imam) said, ‘Yes, he can do so but he must say the following: “O Lord, I take this property in place of my property which he has taken from me and I do not take it with treacherous intention and injustice.’”