Evaluation of the Reasons for Inequality of the Blood Money for Muslim and Non-Muslim Victims in the Islamic Jurisprudence

Non-Muslim is a member of the Islamic community, who does not believe in an essentially-accepted principle of Islam, i.e., acknowledging Muhammad as the last prophet of God. According to Islamic jurisprudence, non-Muslims can obtain the citizenship of an Islamic country by accepting the ‘Dhimmah’ contract and enjoy its legal privileges as long as they do not commit any crime there. In crimes committed against individuals, in addition to retaliation and amnesty, paying the blood money to innocent victim(s) is also legitimate. Most of Islamic jurisprudents from the sects of Imamiyyah, Malikiyyah, Shafi‘iyyah, Hanbaliyyah, Dhahiriyyah, and Abadhiyyah believe that the blood money of non-Muslims is lower than that of Muslims. However, it seems that reasons given for this theory is not compatible with the significantly-expressed goal of the God in realizing social justice. The majority of documents referred to for such inequality have invalid references. It seems that the issues like ‘Dhimmah’ and ‘Jizya’, which have been considered in Islam for non-Muslims, have been all related to the certain time and situation in which these issues have appeared for the first time, and there is not any rationale for generalizing such cases to other times and situations. The blood money-related rules for non-Muslims are sub-clauses of other changeable rules; thus, they may vary in different times and situations. A clear difference among various references for non-Muslims’ blood money proves the above-mentioned issues. Conducting a descriptive study on the opinions of both Shia and Sunni jurisprudents and analyzing the way of their reasoning, the present research rejects the influence of a victim’s religion on the amount of his/her blood money.