Chapter: Retaliatory Execution of a Group for Killing One Person

If several individuals collaborate in deliberately and unjustly killing a single person, retaliation is taken from all of them: they are all put to death for that one victim. This is the sounder of the two opinions reported from the scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, because of the general wording of the Almighty’s words: “O you who believe! Retaliation has been prescribed for you in cases of murder … and in retaliation there is life for you, O people of insight, so that you may become mindful” (Q 2:178-179).

The Companions also reached unanimous agreement on this point. Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib related that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allah be pleased with him, executed seven men from Ṣanʿāʾ who had killed a single man, saying, “Had all the people of Ṣanʿāʾ colluded in his murder, I would have executed them all for him.”

Authentic reports to the same effect are found from other Companions as well, and no dissent from them is known in their time; thus it constitutes consensus.

The eminent scholar Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “The Companions and the vast majority of jurists agreed that all the perpetrators are killed for one victim—even though the original principle of retaliation might seem to forbid it—so that the absence of retaliation will not serve as a pretext for people to collaborate in the shedding of blood.” End quote.