39. The Book of Criminal Offences

Homicide occurs in five forms: intentional, quasi-intentional, accidental, what is classed as accidental, and killing by causation.

1. Intentional homicide (ʿamd) is to strike a person deliberately with a weapon, or with anything that functions like a weapon in tearing the body—such as a sharpened piece of wood, a stone, or fire. Its consequence is sin and retaliatory execution (qiṣāṣ) unless the heirs pardon; no expiation (kaffāra) is required.

2. Quasi-intentional homicide, according to Abū Ḥanīfa, is to strike deliberately with something that is neither a weapon nor the equivalent of a weapon. Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad hold that if one strikes with a large stone or a heavy club, the killing is deemed intentional, while quasi-intentional is when a person intentionally strikes with something that normally does not kill. Under both opinions the act entails sin and a mandatory expiation, but no retaliation; instead, an aggravated blood-money (diya mughallaẓa) is payable by the ʿāqila—the offender’s male agnates responsible for blood-money.

3. Accidental homicide is of two kinds:
   a. Error of intention: he shoots at what he thinks is game, but it turns out to be a human being.
   b. Error of action: he aims at a target and the missile strikes a person instead.
   The legal effect is expiation and blood-money upon the ʿāqila, with no sin attached.

4. What is treated like accidental homicide—for example, a sleeper who rolls over onto someone and kills him—follows the same ruling as accidental homicide.

5. Killing by causation, such as a man who digs a well or leaves a stone in a place not his own and someone dies because of it, obliges blood-money upon the ʿāqila but no expiation.

Retaliatory execution is obligatory, for all time, for the intentional killing of anyone whose blood is protected.

A free man is executed for killing a free man, and a free man for killing a slave; a Muslim for killing a dhimmī, though a Muslim is not executed for killing a mustaʾmin (a temporarily protected non-Muslim). A man is executed for killing a woman, an adult for a child, and a sound person for killing the blind or the disabled. A man is not executed for killing his own son, his slave, his mudabbar, his mukātab, or the slave of his child. If someone inherits a right of retaliation against his father, it lapses and may not be enforced.