The first is that whoever seeks retaliation takes precedence, whether the daughters, the sisters, or the agnatic relatives. This is Ibn al-Qāsim’s position in al-Mudawwana.
The second is that the agnatic relatives have the prior right both to demand retaliation and to grant a pardon, because they have established their entitlement through their oaths. This is the position transmitted by ʿĪsā from Ibn al-Qāsim.
What I have written concerning these various cases summarizes material that may be difficult to extract from the source works. The remaining rulings concerning the next of kin, the questions arising in homicide cases, their order of precedence in such cases, who has rights and who does not, and all the points on which there is agreement or disagreement are set out and explained in the original work. There is therefore no point in dwelling on them here.
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Liability for accidental killing may likewise be established through qasāma, as we explained earlier. The oaths are apportioned among the heirs, men and women alike, in proportion to their shares of the blood money. If the oaths cannot be apportioned according to their inheritance shares without leaving a fraction, the fractional oath is rounded up for the heir entitled to the largest share of that fraction. According to another opinion, it is rounded up for the heir allocated the largest share of the oaths.
If the heirs have equal inheritance shares—for example, if they are all brothers or all sons—and one or more oaths must be divided fractionally among them, their shares of those fractions are equal. For example, if the heirs are three brothers, each must swear sixteen and two-thirds oaths; if they are thirty brothers, each must swear one and two-thirds oaths. There is disagreement over this too. Ibn al-Qāsim held that each heir’s fractional share of the divided oaths is rounded up. Thus, each of the thirty brothers swears two oaths, and each of the three brothers swears seventeen oaths. Ashhab disagreed, saying: “Each of the thirty brothers swears one oath. They are then told to bring twenty men from among themselves, each of whom swears one oath.”
Likewise, if they number more than fifty men, all of them swear according to Ibn al-Qāsim’s position, whereas only fifty of them swear according to Ashhab’s position.
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If the heirs are wives, daughters, sisters, or other such heirs entitled to fixed shares, there is no