Hadith 2633

Commentary

‘Āqilah’ means the near male relatives on the father’s side who are obliged to pay the blood money on behalf of any of the clan’s members who kills a person. The first responsibility of the payment of blood money is with brothers and nephews, after them, the responsibility rests upon their son. Meaning the male members of one grandfather. After this, the responsibility goes to the brothers of the grandfather. Making blood money the responsibility of the ‘Āqilah is to divide the due blood money into many easy shares, to lighten the burden of payment. In this way one person or one family is not overburdened. Another reason for collecting the blood money from the relatives is that they usually help each other in fights and disputes, they also understand that in case of bloodshed, they will have to pay their share of blood money, so naturally they will not allow any member of their tribe to commit this type of crime, rather they will stop him from doing such a crime.