Book of Blood Claims and the Procedure of Qasāmah

The claimant must specify what he is alleging—whether the killing was intentional or accidental, committed by a single person or jointly. If he leaves this unspecified, the judge asks for clarification; another view is that the judge should simply dismiss him. He must also name the defendant; thus, if he says, “One of these men killed him,” the judge does not require them to swear, according to the sounder opinion. These two requirements likewise hold for claims of usurpation, theft, and the destruction of property. A claim is entertained only from a legally responsible person who would himself be liable on equal terms.

If he first asserts that the defendant alone carried out the killing and later directs the claim at another, the second claim is not admitted. Should he initially claim deliberate homicide and then describe it differently, the basic claim is not invalidated on the stronger view.

Qasāmah is established in cases of homicide when there is lūth (a corroborative presumption of the claimant’s truthfulness), such as finding the victim slain in a quarter or small village inhabited by his enemies, or when a crowd has dispersed from around him. If two battle-lines confronted each other and then drew apart leaving a dead man, and actual fighting had taken place, the lūth applies against the opposing line; if no fighting occurred, it applies against his own line.

The testimony of a single upright witness constitutes lūth, and so does that of slaves or of women, though one opinion stipulates that their statements must come from different individuals. According to the sounder position, the statements of sinners, minors, and non-Muslims likewise suffice as lūth.

When lūth is present and one of the victim’s two sons says, “So-and-so killed him,” while the other denies it, the lūth is void—although another opinion maintains it is not, and a further view says it is not nullified when the one who contradicts is a transgressor. If one son claims, “Zayd and an unknown person killed him,” and the other says, “ʿAmr and an unknown person,” each swears concerning the one he has named and receives a quarter of the diyah.

If the defendant denies that the circumstances of lūth apply to him, saying, “I was not among those who dispersed from around him,” he is believed upon his oath. And if lūth arises only with respect to the fact of a killing, without showing whether it was deliberate or accidental, qasāmah is not invoked in