Discussion of the Blood-Monies for Limbs

The general rule concerning any limb that is severed unintentionally is that a fixed sum of money is due—the amount called the diyah. The same principle applies to wounds and to homicide, and it is established by the ḥadīth of ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm, transmitted from his father:

“In the document that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—wrote for ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm regarding blood-compensations it is stated: ‘For a life, one hundred camels; for the nose, when completely severed, one hundred camels; for a maʾmūmah, one-third of the diyah; for a jāʾifah, the same; for an eye, fifty; for a hand, fifty; for a leg, fifty; for each finger thereof, ten camels; and for a tooth and a muḍiḥah, five.’ ”

All of this is unanimously accepted except in the cases of the tooth and the thumb, about which they differed, as will be explained. There are also matters on which they agreed, though not mentioned in the text, by analogy with what it does mention.

Accordingly, the scholars are unanimous that the two lips together carry the full diyah. The majority add that each individual lip carries half a diyah, while some of the Successors held that the lower lip warrants two-thirds, since it retains food and drink; its movement and utility, they argued, exceed those of the upper lip. This was the opinion of Zayd ibn Thābit.

In general, the body’s paired organs each entail a full diyah, according to all jurists and leading muftis, with the exception of the two eyebrows and a man’s breasts. They disagreed, however, about the ears: when is a diyah due for them?

Al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Thawrī, and al-Layth said that if both ears are entirely cut off, the full diyah is obligatory, without conditioning it on the loss of hearing; for the loss of hearing itself they prescribe a separate diyah.

Mālik’s well-known position is that no diyah is owed for the ears unless the hearing is lost; otherwise only a discretionary ḥukūmah is imposed. It is narrated that Abū Bakr adjudicated fifteen camels for the two ears, saying, “They do not impair hearing, and the hair or turban covers them.” Reports from ʿUmar, ʿAlī, and Zayd indicate that they awarded half a diyah when a single ear was completely removed. The majority of scholars, for their part, agree without dissent that the loss of hearing itself carries the full diyah.

As for the eyebrows, Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī impose only a ḥukūmah, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah assigns a full diyah. The same dispute applies to the eyelashes: according to Mālik there is nothing beyond a discretionary ḥukūmah.

The Hanafis base their view on the report from Ibn Masʿūd: “Every pair in a human being carries a diyah,” assimilating the eyebrows and eyelashes to the other paired organs over which there is agreement. Mālik’s principle, by contrast, is that analogy has no place in this matter; rather