and they differed as to which part that was. Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with him, and most exegetes said: They struck him with the bone adjoining the cartilage—the lethal spot. Mujāhid and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: With the tailbone, because it is the first thing created and the last to decay, and the body is reconstituted upon it. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said: With its tongue. Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faḍl said: This is more fitting, since it is the organ of speech. Al-Kalbī and ʿIkrimah said: With its right thigh. It was also said: With one of its limbs, without specifying which. So they did so, and the slain man rose alive by Allah Most High’s permission, while his neck veins gushed with blood. He said, “So-and-so killed me,” then fell down and died where he was. His killer was therefore barred from inheritance. It is related: “No killer inherited after the man of the cow.” (1)

There is an ellipsis in the wording, its implied meaning being: He was struck and then brought to life. “Thus Allah brings the dead to life,” just as He brought ʿĀmil to life, “and shows you His signs, so that you may understand.” It was said: so that you may restrain yourselves from acts of disobedience.

As for the ruling on this matter in Islam: if a slain person is found somewhere and his killer is unknown, then, if there is lawth (circumstantial evidence making the claimant’s allegation probably true) against a person—lawth means that the claimant’s truthfulness is deemed probable: for example, a group gathers in a house or desert place, then disperses leaving behind a slain person, such that it is probable that the killer is among them; or a slain person is found in a quarter or village whose inhabitants are all enemies of the slain person and no one else associates with them, making it probable that they killed him—then, if the heir claims against one of them, the claimant swears fifty oaths against the person he accuses. If there are several heirs, the oaths are apportioned among them. After they have sworn, they take the blood money from the defendant’s ʿāqilah (male agnatic relatives responsible for blood-money liability), if they claim accidental killing; but if they claim intentional killing, it is taken from his own property. According to the majority, no retaliatory execution is imposed, though some held that it is obligatory. This was the view of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and it was also held by Mālik and Aḥmad.

If there is no lawth against the defendant, then the defendant’s statement is accepted with his oath. Is he to swear a single oath or fifty oaths? There are two views: the first is that he swears one oath, as in all other claims; the second is that he swears fifty oaths, due to the gravity of a case involving bloodshed. According to Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allah have mercy on him, lawth has no legal effect, nor is any weight given to the claimant’s oath. He said: If a slain person is found in a quarter, the imam selects fifty righteous men from among its inhabitants and makes them swear that they neither killed him nor knew who his killer was; then he takes the blood money from its inhabitants.

The evidence that, when lawth is present, the procedure begins with the claimant’s oath is that ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Muḥammad al-Khaṭīb informed us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad al-Khallāl informed us; Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Aṣamm informed us; al-Rabīʿ informed us; al-Shāfiʿī informed us; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Thaqafī informed us, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from Bashīr ibn Yasār (4), from Sahl ibn Abī Ḥathmah: ʿAbd Allah ibn Sahl and Muḥayyiṣah ibn Masʿūd went to Khaybar, where they separated to attend to their respective needs. ʿAbd Allah ibn Sahl was killed, so Muḥayyiṣah, together with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ⦗14/A⦘, the slain man’s brother, and Ḥuwayyiṣah ibn Masʿūd, went to the Messenger of Allah