A slave is killed in retaliation for a slave, even if the value of the killer exceeds that of the victim. When disbelievers belong to different religions, retaliation is exacted between them. A man may be killed in retaliation for a woman, a woman for a man, an adult for a child, and a sane person for an insane person.

There is no retaliation against a minor or an insane person. A father is not killed in retaliation for killing his child, but a child is killed in retaliation for killing his father, and a brother for killing his sister.

Purely accidental killing is when the killing is attributed to a person who did not intend to commit the act against the victim—for example, when a man shoots at a target but hits a person; digs a well and someone falls into it; extends a projecting structure that falls onto a person; rides an animal that kicks someone; or places a stone in the road over which someone trips. If death results from any such act or anything similar, it is purely accidental killing. This entails blood money rather than retaliation, and the blood money is borne by the offender’s agnatic relatives—the ʿāqilah—not from his own wealth. It is payable over three years beginning from the time the victim dies.

The ʿāqilah are the agnatic relatives other than fathers and sons. According to one of the two reports, a father, however remote, and a son, however remote, do not bear any of it; according to the other, fathers and sons are included among the ʿāqilah. The killer bears nothing of the blood money together with the ʿāqilah.

Each affluent member of the ʿāqilah bears half a dinar per year, or its equivalent in camels. A person of moderate means bears a quarter of a dinar, or its equivalent in camels, while the poor bear nothing. Whoever becomes affluent after having been poor bears his share, whereas whoever becomes poor after having been affluent bears nothing.

This apportionment that we have mentioned was Abu Bakr’s preferred position, and he included it in his abridgment, al-Tanbīh. The apparent meaning of Ahmad’s words is that what is imposed upon each member of the ʿāqilah is not fixed; rather, it is determined through independent legal reasoning according to what he can reasonably afford without being harmed. In al-Maymūnī’s report, it states: “According to what the people can bear.”