If a protected non-Muslim (dhimmī) is slain and the killer later embraces Islam, Mālik holds that the conversion does not eliminate the right of retaliation. Similarly, if a slave murders another slave and retaliation is not carried out before the killer is manumitted, the manumission is rejected, for the master of the slain slave acquires ownership of the killer unless the latter’s master redeems him.

Retaliation applies equally between a man and a woman, whether for life itself or for lesser deliberate wounds: he may be put to death for her and she for him, and each of them may claim retaliation against the other. The same rule holds when a man deliberately kills his own wife—she is treated like anyone else. There is, however, no retaliation between a free unbeliever and a Muslim slave.

Children are not allowed to execute retaliation against their mothers, fathers, grandfathers, or grandmothers—unless the ascendant kills in a manner that leaves no doubt of deliberate intent, such as slaughtering, disembowelling, or striking a son or grandson with a sword and cleaving him in two. In such unmistakable cases the father is treated like any stranger, and retaliation is taken from him by the very method he used.

If, on the other hand, the father performs an act that people normally regard as disciplinary and the child dies in his presence, the father must pay an aggravated blood money, as will be detailed in the chapter on blood monies, God willing, and retaliation is waived between father and son out of the natural compassion people feel for their children and in light of the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “The parent is not executed for (killing) his child.”

All other relatives, apart from those just mentioned, are treated like strangers. As for a son who deliberately kills his father, there is no disagreement that he is subject to retaliation and is to be put to death for him. If a man kills his father and the father has two sons—one being the deliberate killer—while the other son pardons