1026 – It is narrated from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ—may Allah be pleased with them both—that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Indeed, the blood money (diyah) for a semi-intentional homicide—the kind committed with a whip or a stick—is one hundred camels, forty of which are pregnant.” Reported by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah, and declared authentic by Ibn Ḥibbān (1).

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Reliability of the ḥadīth
• The report is authentic (ṣaḥīḥ).
• It was graded sound by Ibn Ḥibbān and Ibn al-Qaṭṭān.
• Al-Talʾkhīṣ states: “Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah transmitted it from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr; Ibn Ḥibbān declared it authentic, and Ibn al-Qaṭṭān said: ‘It is sound, and the variations in its chains do not affect it.’”
• The ḥadīth has multiple lines of transmission that mutually reinforce one another.

Points derived from the ḥadīth

1. “Semi-intentional” (shibh al-ʿamd), also called “mistake tinged with intent” (khaṭaʾ al-ʿamd), is defined by the jurists as a case in which the assailant deliberately inflicts harm that does not normally kill, such as striking someone with a whip, a stick, or a small stone on a non-vital area.
2. Semi-intentional homicide resembles deliberate homicide in that the aggressor intends the assault, yet it resembles accidental killing in that he does not mean to kill and does not use a lethal weapon.
3. The diyah for semi-intentional homicide is aggravated in the same way as for deliberate homicide: as stated in the present ḥadīth, “one hundred camels, forty of them pregnant.”