Scriptural Foundation and the Categories of Homicide
The Quranic charter of diyah is sura al-Nisa 4:92, which legislates that whoever kills a believer by mistake (khata’) must free a believing slave and pay diyah delivered to the victim’s family, unless they remit it as a charitable act (sadaqa); where the slain belonged to a hostile people, only the manumission is due, and where to a people bound by treaty, both the diyah and the manumission apply, with fasting two consecutive months substituted for one unable to manumit. This is reinforced by 2:178, which permits the heirs of an intentionally slain person to accept compensation in place of qisas (‘Whoever is pardoned by his brother, let there be fair demand and payment in kindness’), and by the Prophet’s normative letter to ‘Amr ibn Hazm and his statement at the Farewell Pilgrimage fixing the full diyah at one hundred camels. From these texts the jurists derived a tripartite classification of unlawful killing: ‘amd (deliberate, using a means ordinarily lethal), shibh al-‘amd (quasi-deliberate, an intent to strike but with a non-lethal instrument), and khata’ (accident proper). The category determines who pays, in what coin, and over what term.
Intentional homicide makes the killer liable to qisas at the heirs’ demand, but they may instead accept a heavier diyah (diyah mughallaza) paid from the killer’s own property, often immediately. Quasi-intentional and accidental killing carry no qisas; the diyah is “lightened” (mukhaffafa) in the species of camels owed and is paid in three annual installments. The Hanafis and Ja’faris draw the ‘amd / shibh al-‘amd / khata’ distinction sharply, while Malik famously denied a separate shibh al-‘amd category, recognizing only deliberate and accidental killing.
The Quantum of Diyah and the Schedule of Injuries
The benchmark is the diyah of a free Muslim male: one hundred camels. The jurists fixed monetary equivalents because camels were not everywhere available — one thousand gold dinars, and in silver ten thousand dirhams in the Hanafi reckoning or twelve thousand in others, with alternatives of two hundred cattle, two thousand sheep, or two hundred sets of garments according to several schools. For the aggravated (mughallaza) diyah of intentional or quasi-intentional killing, the camel mix is weighted toward pregnant and older she-camels; for the accidental diyah the herd is composed of younger, lighter graded camels. Killing within the sacred precincts, during the sacred months, or of a close relative (dhu rahm) attracts aggravation in several madhhabs.
For non-fatal harm the law sets an arsh (compensation tariff). The governing principle, drawn from the ‘Amr ibn Hazm document, is that a single member whose loss destroys a faculty carries the full diyah (the nose, the tongue, the male organ, the spine), a member that exists as a pair carries half each (one eye, one hand, one foot, one ear), and a member existing in tens — such as fingers and toes — carries one tenth of the diyah each, with each tooth assessed at five camels. Head and facial wounds (the shijaj) are graded by depth from the superficial damiyah up to the ma’muma reaching the brain membrane (one third of the diyah) and the damigha penetrating it; bone-fractures (kasr) and internal wounds (jaif) have their own fixed fractions. Where no fixed tariff exists, the judge awards hukumat ‘adl, an equitable assessment. The schools differ notably on the diyah of a woman (the majority, including all four Sunni schools and the dominant Ja’fari view, set it at half that of a man, citing precedent though the textual basis is debated) and of non-Muslims (ranging across the schools from a full diyah for protected People of the Book in the Hanafi view to one third or less in others).
Diyah as a Private Right, the ‘Aqila, and Modern Application
Diyah is classified as a haqq al-‘abd (a right of the human claimant) rather than a haqq Allah, which has decisive consequences: it belongs to the heirs as part of the estate, it may be wholly or partly waived or settled, and it stands as the negotiated alternative to qisas. This distinguishes it from the fixed hudud penalties, which are public claims the ruler cannot pardon once proven. Where homicide is established but qisas is barred — by the heirs’ pardon, by the killer being a parent of the victim, by doubt, or because the act was unintentional — diyah becomes the operative remedy, alongside the religious expiation (kaffara) of freeing a believing slave or fasting two months that 4:92 attaches independently to accidental killing.
For unintentional killing the burden does not fall on the killer alone but on the ‘aqila — classically his agnatic male relatives, and by extension his tribe, military register (diwan), or solidarity group — who share the diyah as a form of mutual insurance, paying it over three years; the killer’s deliberate killing, by contrast, is paid from his own wealth. The madhhabs differ on the ‘aqila’s composition: the Hanafis tied it to the diwan or professional fellowship, Malik and al-Shafi’i to the paternal kindred, and the Ja’fari school to the ‘asaba with the Imam or public treasury (bayt al-mal) as a backstop when no kin exist. In contemporary Muslim states the ‘aqila has largely been displaced; codified penal laws, state compensation funds, and motor-insurance schemes now discharge the function, and the monetary diyah is periodically re-fixed by government decree against the current price of gold or camels, so that the classical one hundred camels translates into a fluctuating but officially published sum.
See also: Fiqh Al Jirah, Fiqh Al Kaffarah, Fiqh Al Hudud, Fiqh Al Miras Wal Tarika, Fiqh Al Aqd Wal Shurut