Exploringthe Responsibility of ‘Āqilah as an Exception to the Rule of Wizr in Law and Jurisprudence

Theresponsibility of ‘āqilah has been under consideration and argued by jurists and legal specialistssince before Islam.‘Āqilah is the same as ‘aṣabahamongShi'a and Sunni jurists, which means male agnates of a murderer (who are liable for the payment of blood money). According to jurists, ‘āqilah are responsibleinthe cases like: unintentional homicide, intentional homicide andquasi intentional homicide committed by a minor and insane, intentional andunintentional homicidecommitted by a blind etc.,sixcasesoverall. Jurists believe that responsibility of ‘āqilah is not a prescriptive law, rather it isa situational law which means the liability is on the shoulders of the murderer in the first place. It is disputed that whether this rule is in force now or not. There are two ideasamong scholars concerning that does this responsibility is an exception to the rule of wizr (doer is the only responsibleperson of a crime) or not, and bothgroups have somereasons for their opinions. However, the reasons of both parties turn back to the base of blood money, for some believe that it belongs to penal code while the others consider it of civil code. In the viewpoint of Shi'a and Hanafijurists,blood money is a way to compensation, thus most of them believe that the rule of wizris notcapable ofexception.