Muwatta Malik (Yahya)

Rabee'ah bin Abu Abdur Rahman used to say that the price of a slave or slave-girl given as blood money for a fetus should be fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams, and the blood money for a free Muslim woman is five hundred dinars or six thousand dirhams.

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said that the blood money (diyah) for the unborn child in the womb of a free woman is one-tenth of the woman's diyah, and that is fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams. This diyah becomes obligatory for the unborn child when it comes out of the womb dead. I have not heard anyone differing in this. If it comes out alive from the womb and then dies, then the full diyah will be obligatory.

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said that if a pregnant woman kills a man or a woman, retribution (qisas) should not be taken from her until she gives birth. If someone kills a pregnant woman, whether intentionally or by mistake, the blood money (diyah) for her fetus will not be obligatory. Rather, if she was killed intentionally, the killer will be killed, and if she was killed by mistake, the blood money for the woman will be obligatory upon the killer’s ‘aqilah (male relatives responsible for blood money).

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked: What if someone kills the fetus of a Jewish or Christian woman? He replied: One-tenth of the blood money of its mother will have to be given.

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said that the life of a fetus, that is, a child in the womb, will be determined by its crying; if it cries and then dies, the full blood money will be obligatory, and in the case of a slave woman’s fetus, one-tenth of the value of that slave woman must be given.