and the well-known position of Mālik is that it belongs exclusively to the male agnates. I add: this is also a reported view from Aḥmad and was the preference of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn.

Here, then, is the dispute in greater detail.

Disagreement among the scholars:
The three Imams and the majority of jurists maintain that the right of retaliation is vested in all the heirs—those related by blood or by cause, male and female, young and old. If any one of them pardons, the pardon is valid, retaliation is dropped, and the offender can no longer be pursued, because of the Prophet’s ﷺ general statement, “His family are given two choices,” which embraces all of his family. A woman is undeniably part of that family, as confirmed by his ﷺ words, “Who will relieve me of a man whose hurt toward my family has reached me, while I have known nothing of my family except good?”

Imam Mālik, on the other hand, holds that the right to retaliate—and to forgo it—is indeed inherited, but it is confined to the male agnates. The rationale, he says, is that the law was instituted to avert disgrace, a matter that pertains to the agnates, much like guardianship in marriage.

This opinion is likewise a narration from Imam Aḥmad, an admissible view within the Shāfiʿī school, and the choice of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn.

Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh said: “Pardoning is the right of all heirs, male and female. Yet if ruses to nullify retaliation become widespread and there is fear that excessive pardons will undermine public security, it is permissible, as a necessity, to act upon the other opinion favored by Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn and well-known in the Mālikī school—that women have no authority to pardon in matters of retaliation and that this prerogative is restricted to the agnates. The Shaykh based this on a principle he cites in some of his works: when necessity is established, it is allowable to follow the weaker opinion in pursuit of the public interest.

This, however, must not be treated as a blanket rule in every case; necessity is to be gauged by its precise measure, and the ruling fluctuates with its underlying cause.”}