III. The Victim
For retaliation to be valid, the victim’s blood must be commensurate with that of the assailant. Two factors determine this equivalence: slavery and unbelief.
- Slave and Free Person
The jurists differed concerning the application of retaliation between a slave and a free person in cases of wounding, just as they differed in homicide:
• Some held that no retaliation is taken from a free person for the sake of a slave, whereas it is taken from a slave for the sake of a free person, exactly as in homicide.
• Others ruled that each may retaliate against the other, drawing no distinction between wounding and homicide.
• A third group made distinctions:
– Some said retaliation is taken from the superior for the inferior in both life and limb;
– Others said it is taken in homicide but not in wounding. Two reported opinions exist from Mālik on this point.
The correct view is that just as retaliation is exacted for homicide, it is likewise exacted for wounding. Such, then, is the ruling between slaves and free persons.
- Slaves Among Themselves
With respect to slaves vis-à-vis one another, scholars hold three opinions:
(a) Retaliation applies among them in homicide and in lesser injuries. This is the view of al-Shāfiʿī and others, is reported from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, and is also Mālik’s position.
(b) No retaliation applies among them, neither for life nor for limb; they are treated like livestock. This is the opinion of al-Ḥasan, Ibn Shubrumah, and others.
(c) Retaliation applies among them in homicide but not in lesser injuries. This is the view of Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Thawrī and is related from Ibn Masʿūd.
The first group rely on the divine statement,
“A slave for a slave” (Qurʾān 2:178).
The Ḥanafīs rely on the report from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn: “A slave belonging to some poor people cut off the ear of a slave belonging to some wealthy people. They came to the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—and he did not exact retaliation from him.”
Such is the ruling with respect to homicide.
IV. The Wound
As for a wound, it is a condition that it be inflicted deliberately—that is, the type of wound for which retaliation is obligatory. A wound either destroys one of the victim’s limbs or does not.
If it destroys a limb, intentionality means that the assailant deliberately strikes the victim in anger with something that normally causes injury.
If the wound is inflicted in play, or the blow is delivered playfully with something that does not usually wound, or it is delivered as discipline, the matter parallels the juristic disagreement about homicide arising from play or discipline with something that does not normally kill. Abū Ḥanīfah considers the instrument itself and therefore states, “A killer who uses a heavy implement (al-muthaqal) is not to be executed in retaliation,” an anomalous opinion of his—namely, the dispute over whether retaliation or only blood-money is due when the wound is one for which blood-money is normally prescribed.