—and, according to the sounder position, it is likewise not resorted to for the severing of a limb or the destruction of property, except in the case of a slave, which is the prevalent view.

Qasāmah consists of the claimant taking fifty oaths affirming the homicide he alleges. Continuity of those oaths is not required on the dominant opinion; should a spell of insanity or fainting intervene, he resumes from where he left off. If he dies, however, the heir does not pick up the count, on the more correct view. When the victim has several heirs, the oaths are apportioned among them in proportion to their respective shares, any fractional shortfall being rounded up; another opinion holds that each heir must still swear the full fifty. If one heir refuses to swear, the other takes fifty oaths; if one is absent, the present heir takes fifty oaths and recovers his own portion, otherwise he must wait for the absentee.

The authoritative position is that the defendant’s oath when there is no lūth, the oath that is returned to the claimant—or to the defendant when lūth is present—and the oath taken alongside a single witness, all consist of fifty statements.

Through qasāmah, an accidental or quasi-deliberate killing obliges the diyah upon the ʿāqilah, whereas in a deliberate killing it is due from the person against whom the oaths are directed; in the older opinion, retaliation (qiṣāṣ) is incurred instead.

If intentional homicide supported by lūth is alleged against three people and only one is present, the claimant swears fifty oaths concerning that individual and receives one-third of the diyah. Should a second appear, he again swears fifty oaths—although one view limits him to twenty-five provided that defendant was not previously named in the oaths; otherwise, the original oaths suffice, this hinging on the validity of qasāmah in the defendant’s absence, which is the sounder opinion.

Anyone entitled to the blood price may take the oaths, even a mukātab whose slave has been killed. If the claimant is an apostate, it is preferable to defer his oaths until he returns to Islam, yet if he swears while still apostate the oaths are valid on the dominant view. Where the deceased leaves no heir, qasāmah is not invoked.

Section
Liability for retaliation is established only by a confession or the testimony of two upright men. Monetary liability, however, is proven by the same means, or by the testimony of one man together with two women, or by a single witness backed by an oath. When the heir pardons retaliation so that the matter becomes purely financial, the testimony of one man and two women to that effect is, according to the sounder view, inadmissible.

If the claimant himself and two women testify to a hāshima (a bone-fracturing wound) before it develops into a muḍīḥa (one that exposes bone), the indemnity for the muḍīḥa is, on the prevalent view, not due. The witness must explicitly link the act to the fatal result: should he say, “He struck him with a sword and wounded him, whereupon he died,” liability is not established until he adds, “and he died from that wound,” or “so he killed him.” If he states, “He struck his head and caused bleeding,” or “so that blood flowed,” a dāmiyah (bleeding wound) is established. For a muḍīḥa the witness must say, “He struck him and exposed the bone of his head”; another opinion deems it sufficient merely to say, “He exposed his head.”