Chapter: The Aqilah and What It Bears

This chapter covers two subjects: the first is the aqilah (the indemnity-paying kin group), and the second is what the aqilah bears.

Aqilah is, in its original form, an active participle derived from aql; it is not a verbal noun used in the sense of an active participle. For we only resort to treating an active participle as a verbal noun when it cannot properly be an active participle, as with aqibah and afiyah and similar words.

Is aql derived from the blood money, because they pay it on behalf of their relative? Or is it derived from aql, meaning restraint, because the aqilah restrain their relative from being attacked or from following a course that would damage their reputation?

The answer is that it encompasses all these meanings, for they are not mutually contradictory.

“A person’s aqilah consists of all his agnates, whether related by blood or by wala, near or distant, present or absent, including both direct lines of descent, …”

His statement, “A person’s aqilah consists of all his agnates related by blood,” means that his agnates by blood are every male who is not related through a female. Thus, the husband is excluded, for he is not an agnate; likewise, the maternal brother is not included, because he is related through the mother and is also not an agnate. This includes brothers, paternal uncles, sons of brothers, sons of paternal uncles, and the like.

His statement, “and by wala,” means that agnates by wala include the emancipator, the emancipator’s sons, fathers, and brothers, because wala, as has been stated in