Book of Blood-Money for Injuries Short of Homicide
The Matters for Which Blood-Money Is Due When Life Is Not Taken
Section: Diyyahs for Head Wounds (Shijāj)
The injuries that give rise to blood-money short of homicide are of two kinds—head wounds (shijāj) and the severing of limbs. We shall begin with the shijāj.
The discussion in this chapter concerns six points: the locus that entails liability, the condition for that liability, the amount owed, upon whom it is imposed, when it becomes due, and to whom it is payable.
- Locus of Liability
Liability arises from either a head wound or the severing of a limb.
- Kinds of Head Wounds
In both linguistic and legal usage there are ten shijāj:
- The dāmiyah: a wound that merely makes the skin bleed.
- The khāriṣah: one that splits the skin.
- The bāḍiʿah: one that cuts into the flesh.
- The mutalāḥimah: one that penetrates further into the flesh.
- The samḥāq: one that reaches the samḥāq, the thin membrane between flesh and bone—also called the malṭāʾ (with either a long or short vowel).
- The muḍiḥah: one that exposes the bone.
- The hāshimah: one that crushes the bone.
- The munqillah: one that dislodges fragments of bone.
- The maʾmūmah: one that reaches the covering of the brain.
- The jāʾifah: one that penetrates the body cavity.
These terms apply exclusively to injuries of the face and head; wounds elsewhere in the body are designated simply as jurḥ (pl. jurūḥ). Such, then, are the names of the shijāj.
- Legal Rulings
With respect to the compensation due, the scholars agree that blood-money (al-ʿaql) is payable for an intentional muḍiḥah, but that wounds less than a muḍiḥah, when inflicted unintentionally, carry no fixed blood-money; rather, they are compensated by a discretionary assessment (ḥukūmah). Some maintain that this ḥukūmah is equivalent to the physician’s fee, except for what is reported from ʿUmar and ʿUthmān, who ruled that a samḥāq warrants one-half the diyyah of a muḍiḥah, and from ʿAlī, who awarded four camels for it.
Zayd ibn Thābit is reported to have said: for a dāmiyah, one camel; for a bāḍiʿah, two camels; for a mutalāḥimah, three camels; and for a samḥāq, four.
The majority of the jurists of the major centers uphold what we have stated: the default in wounds is a discretionary assessment unless the Sunnah fixes a specific amount. Mālik requires the ḥukūmah for injuries beneath a muḍiḥah only if the wound heals leaving a blemish, whereas the other jurists impose it whether or not a blemish remains. These are the rulings pertaining to injuries short of a muḍiḥah.
As for the muḍiḥah itself, all jurists agree that when it is inflicted unintentionally it entails a payment of five camels. This is established from the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in his letter to ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm, and in the ḥadīth of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, in which the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:
“In the case of a muḍiḥah, five,”
meaning five camels.