They claim that the punishement wasn’t equal because the prophet pierced their eyes and apparently they didn’t do so Anas reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) pierced their eyes because they had pierced the eyes of the shepherds. -Source: Sahih Muslim 1671 h Grade: Sahih (authentic) https://sunnah.com/muslim:1671h Another claim is in al-nasa’i 4053 that would they have done is out of kufr this is the opinon of Anas bin malik however the opinion of al-buti and the 3 madhabs and the majority of scholars contradict him Al-Tahawi (d. 321 A.H) made an entire chapter about this topic in his Mushkil al-Athar 5/45: https://al-maktaba.org/book/22547/1839. Some commentators suggested that the piercing was done before the prohibition so in ruh al-maany Also that isn’t the meaning of the hadith kufr of sin means were they non Muslims or Muslims and did hiraba that was the view here, the second explanation is kufr accompanied by hiraba https://alathar.net/home/esound/index.php?op=codevi&coid=179677 Listen