and their womenfolk receive one-half the diyah owed for Muslim women. This is the position of Mālik and of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and on this basis the diyah for any wounds they suffer is likewise fixed at one-half of that for Muslims.

The second opinion is that their diyah amounts to one-third of a Muslim’s diyah. This is the view of al-Shāfiʿī; it is also reported from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, and a number of the Successors adopted it.

The third opinion is that their diyah is identical to that of Muslims. This is the view of Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Thawrī, and others, and is narrated from Ibn Masʿūd; it is likewise related from ʿUmar and ʿUthmān and was held by a group of the Successors.

The principal evidence cited by the first group is the report transmitted by ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “The diyah of a non-Muslim is one-half that of a Muslim.”

The Ḥanafīs base their view on the general wording of the Almighty’s statement: “But if the slain person belonged to a people with whom you have a treaty, then a compensatory blood-money must be paid to his family, and a believing slave set free” (Q 4:92).

They also adduce the practice related by Maʿmar from al-Zuhrī, who said: “The diyah of a Jew, a Christian—in fact of every covenanted non-Muslim—is the same as that of a Muslim. This remained the ruling during the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, until Muʿāwiyah, who placed one-half in the public treasury and gave the victim’s heirs the other half. Later, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ruled for one-half of the diyah and abolished Muʿāwiyah’s allocation to the Bayt al-Māl.” Al-Zuhrī added, “I was never granted the chance to remind ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz that the full diyah had formerly been paid to the People of the Covenant.”

If a slave is killed—whether by mistake or, according to those who do not allow qiṣāṣ for him, deliberately—the jurists again differ. One group says the killer must pay the slave’s full market value, whatever that may be, even if it exceeds the diyah of a free person; this is the view of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Yūsuf, and also of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib and ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Abū Ḥanīfah and Muḥammad maintain that the slave’s value may not surpass the standard diyah. A number of Kufan jurists hold that a diyah is due, but it must remain below that of a free man.

The Ḥanafīs reason that slavery is a state of deficiency, so a slave’s value must not exceed the diyah of a free person. Those who impose a reduced diyah argue that, although the slave is legally accountable, he is nevertheless deficient; therefore the ruling should likewise be deficient while remaining the same in kind, as with the prescribed penalties for fornication, slander, wine-drinking, and divorce. Had anyone said that the liability should be set at one-half the diyah of a free person—in cases of accidental killing—this would have been a plausible view, though no jurist has actually adopted it. Mālik’s rationale is that the slave is property that has been destroyed, so what is due is his market value, by analogy with all other property.

The scholars also disputed upon whom this payment falls when a slave is killed. Abū Ḥanīfah says it is borne by the killer’s ʿāqilah, and this is the position most commonly reported from al-Shāfiʿī. Mālik, however, holds that it is payable by the killer himself, arguing that the slave is analogous to merchandise, whereas al-Shāfiʿī draws an analogy with the free man.