If you ask: Is not the blood money for a man twice that for a woman? How, then, can he be executed in retaliation for her when his blood money is greater than hers?

The answer is that blood money is not a matter of valuation, such that we might say that he exceeds her in value. Rather, it is a legally prescribed assessment from which there is no escape.

For this reason, some scholars held that a man is not executed for a woman, because he is more noble. Others held that he is executed for her, but that half the blood money should be paid to his heirs. They treated the matter as one of valuation. None of this is correct. The sound view is that he is executed without qualification.

If you ask: What is the answer to Allah’s saying, exalted is He:

“The free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female” [al-Baqarah 2:178]?

For its implied meaning is that a male is not executed for a female.

The answer is that this rests on implication by contrast, whereas the sunnah establishes that a male is executed for a female. This shows that this implied meaning carries no weight, and that a male is executed for a female.

Is a female executed for a male? Yes. For if a female is executed for a female, then her execution for a male is all the more warranted.

Fourth: Absence of Parentage. Neither parent, however high the line of ascent, is executed in retaliation for a descendant, however far down the line; but the descendant is executed for either of them.

His statement, “Fourth: absence of parentage,” means that the killer must not be a parent of the victim, whether through the paternal or maternal line. For a parent is not executed in retaliation for the child. Hence, the author says:

“Neither parent, however high the line of ascent, is executed in retaliation for a descendant, however far down the line.” What is meant by “the two parents” is the father and the mother. The masculine form predominates because the father is male, and the male is superior.