Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Sixth Fascicle

kin’. The ’âqila will have to pay this (heavy) diyat within three
years. In a case of premeditated homicide, when an agreement has
been reached, and in a case of homicide by mistake as well, (the
following article,) the property [or money] (of diyat) will be paid
by the ’âqila.
3– Homicide by mistake has two varieties:
a) By mistake on the part of the murderer: To shoot a person
by mistaking him for game or for enemy.
b) By mistake on the part of the bullet: Homicide wherein a
bullet shot at game hits a man or ricochets back from the intended
target and hits a man. Another example of this case is a man’s
being killed by a piece of wood or another heavy object dropped
by a person carrying it. In a case of homicide by mistake a diyat by
the ’âqila and a kaffârat will be necessary. (‘Diyat’ and ‘kaffârat’
will be explained in the following chapter.) The sin incurred will be
less than the one in the previous two cases of homicide.
4– Homicide by way of the cause of a mistake: An example of
this is to kill someone by falling on them from a high place or a
sleeping person’s killing someone by tumbling over them. This
kind of homicide also will be punished with kaffârat and diyat.
Another example is a person’s being trampled to death by the
horse being ridden [or being run over by a vehicle being driven].
5– Death caused by something being done for quite another
purpose. Supposing a person digs a well or places a stone at a place
that does not belong to him and the well he has dug or the stone
causes another person’s death. His ’âqila will have to pay diyat.
Kaffârat will not be necessary. The sin incurred will be for having
dug a well in someone else’s property, and not for homicide. No
compensation will be necessary if he dug the well with the
government’s permission or if the well is in his own property or if
the event of falling into the well took place after the second
person’s having been informed about the well dug.
In the first four types of homicide, the murderer, if he is
mukallaf, (i.e. if he has reached the ages of discretion and
puberty,) will be deprived of inheriting property, whereas he will
not be deprived in the fifth case.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE TO BE PUNISHED WITH
QAVED? — If a person deliberately kills, in the Dâr-ul-islâm,
(one of) the people whose blood is harâm, it will be necessary to
impose ‘qaved’ on him, which means to say that the murderer will
have to be retaliated on by being put to death, (and this retaliation
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