He, exalted be He, says,

“…and the female for the female” (al-Baqarah 2:178).

Although someone might object that this explicit wording clashes with the more general verse, “We ordained for them therein: a life for a life” (al-Māʾidah 5:45), that second verse was addressed to a community before our own. Whether the laws revealed to earlier nations remain binding upon us is itself disputed. Hence, the jurists who permit executing a man for killing a woman ultimately ground their ruling in considerations of public welfare.

Within this same sphere they disagreed about the father who kills his child. Mālik held that the father is not put to death for killing his son—unless he forces him down and deliberately slaughters him. If, however, he strikes him with a sword or a stick and the child dies, the father is not executed; the same applies, in his view, to a grandfather with respect to his grandchild.

Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and al-Thawrī maintained—and the majority of scholars concur—that a parent is never executed for killing his child, nor a grandfather for his grandchild, regardless of the form of deliberate murder involved.

Their principal proof is the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās in which the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “Prescribed penalties are not carried out in the mosques, and a parent is not executed for (killing) his child.” Mālik’s chief evidence, by contrast, is the general obligation of retaliation among Muslims.

The disagreement turns on a report transmitted by Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb: “A man of Banū Mudlij named Qatādah swung a sword at his son, severing his leg. The wound bled until the boy died. Suraqah ibn Juʿshum went to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and informed him. ʿUmar said, ‘Count out one hundred and twenty camels at the watering place of Qudayd until I arrive.’ When ʿUmar came, he took thirty ḥiqqah-she-camels, thirty jadhʿah-she-camels, and forty khalifah-camels, then asked, ‘Where is the victim’s brother?’ He replied, ‘Here I am.’ ʿUmar said, ‘Take them, for the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said, “The killer has no share.”’”

Mālik interpreted this incident to mean that the killing was not pure premeditated murder; he classified it as quasi-deliberate (shibh al-ʿamd) in the context of father and son.

The majority, however, took the report at face value as deliberate killing, since they unanimously agree that whoever strikes another with a sword and kills him has committed intentional murder.

Mālik reasoned that, because a father is authorized to discipline his child and naturally loves him, a killing that occurs under such circumstances should not be presumed intentional. He did not impute malicious intent to the father, since the act was not a covert, treacherous murder (qatl ghīlah). Intent is inferred only when strong indications and weighty suspicion warrant it, for the inner motives are known solely to Allah Most High. Thus Mālik did not suspect the father in the way he would an unrelated perpetrator, owing to the profound affection between father and son.