this is the statement of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to the brother of the man slain at Khaybar and his paternal cousins: “Will you swear the oaths and establish your right to retaliation for your companion’s blood?” Thus, he included them all in taking the oaths and did not assign them to the brother alone, to the exclusion of his cousins. The reasoning is that, since a person cannot be put to death on the testimony of fewer than two witnesses, the right to have him put to death cannot be established except through the qasāma oaths of two men. Ashhab said: “Allah has appointed an oath sworn by the husband in mutual imprecation to correspond to the testimony of each man in an adultery case.” Ibn al-Mājishūn said: “Do you not see that women do not swear the qasāma oaths in cases of intentional killing, since their testimony is not accepted in such cases?”
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If the slain person’s next of kin are two men, each swears twenty-five oaths. If one volunteers to undertake more than twenty-five, that is not permissible. If they number more than two, up to fifty men, and all are counted equally but dispute how to apportion the oaths, these are divided among them according to their number. If the division leaves a remainder—for example, if they number twenty—each swears two oaths, leaving ten oaths. They are then told: “You have no means of establishing your right to retaliation unless ten of you come forward to swear the ten oaths.” If ten of them swear, they establish their right to retaliation. If they all refuse to swear them, their claim to retaliation fails, just as it would if they refused to swear any of the oaths.
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If two men volunteer to undertake all fifty oaths, this is permissible according to Ibn al-Qāsim. None of the remaining next of kin who have not sworn is deemed to have refused, since the claim to retaliation has already been upheld. Al-Mughīra, Ashhab and Ibn al-Mājishūn said: “They must all swear; it is not permissible for only some of them to swear. Those who do not swear are treated as having refused.”
If, however, they number more than fifty, all those we have named agree that it suffices for fifty of them to swear. Those remaining are not deemed to have refused, because the qasāma is completed with fifty oaths. I have also