because, just as they benefit from inheritance, they are also liable for the blood money.
How can we make them beneficiaries and allow them to inherit, then not have them assist the one from whom they inherit when the need arises through contributing to the blood money?
Thus, there are four views regarding the two direct lines of descent:
The first view is that they are like the other agnates.
The second view is that they bear no blood-money liability at all.
The third view is that ascendants bear the liability, but not descendants.
The fourth view is that both ascendants and descendants bear the liability, except for descendants who belong to another tribe, such as a woman’s sons when they belong to a tribe other than hers.
The correct view is the general one: her sons are obligated to support her, even if they belong to a tribe other than hers.
If someone were to ask: What is required of the agnatic relatives?
The answer is: They must pay the blood money on behalf of the killer. This is established by the textual evidence and scholarly consensus in cases of accidental killing. The scholars differed regarding quasi-intentional killing, but the sound view is that it is like accidental killing; that is, the agnatic relatives bear it.
“No blood-money liability is due from a slave, an legally incompetent person, a poor person, a woman, or one whose religion differs from that of the offender. The agnatic relatives do not bear liability for deliberate killing, for the value of a slave, for a settlement, for an admission which they have not confirmed, or for an amount less than one-third of the full blood money.”
His statement, “No blood-money liability is due from a slave,” means that if the offender has a slave relative, that relative bears no liability, for two reasons:
First, he is not ordinarily among those who render support, because he is owned.
Second, he possesses no wealth, since a slave’s property belongs to his master. The evidence is the Prophet’s statement: “Whoever sells a slave who possesses property, then his property belongs to the one who sold him, unless…”