Islamic Fiqh > Penalties (hudud) > Wounds and diyat: limbs, compensation and qisas > Multiple ghorra for multiple pregnancies
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Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
Ghorra, the compensation for a fetus lost through harm to the mother, multiplies with every fetus: three offenders, three fetuses, nine expiations. The status of abortion, the stages of the embryo, the amount of the ghorra, who pays it, the expiation and its inheritance make up the whole.
Each ruling is attributed to the school holding it, each hadith carries its original reference, and the figures are those of the source sheets.
Abortion holds no fewer than two cases. The first: after the soul is breathed in. The people of science agree on forbidding the abortion of a pregnancy after the soul is breathed in, when its survival does not bring the death of the mother.
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya said: aborting a pregnancy is forbidden by the consensus of the Muslims: it belongs to the killing of the buried-alive girl, on which Allah said:
And when the girl buried alive is asked: for what sin was she killed?
Surah at-Takwir, 8-9
and He said:
And do not kill your children for fear of poverty.
Surah al-An'am, 151
The second case: before the soul is breathed in. The jurists differ on the lawfulness of aborting the fetus before its soul is breathed in. The Hanafis in the school, the Shafi'is on the preferred view, al-Lakhmi among the Malikis and Ibn Aqil among the Hanbalis hold it allowed to abort the fetus before the soul is breathed in, that is before one hundred and twenty days.
The Hanafis say: aborting the pregnancy before the soul is breathed in is allowed, even without the husband's consent; it is said a sin attaches if the miscarriage happens without excuse. In the Khaniyya, at the chapter of disapproval: I do not say abortion is allowed without restriction: the one who breaks the eggs of game owes compensation, the egg being the origin of the game; if compensation answers there, a sin attaches here the more to a miscarriage without excuse. Ibn Nujaym said: it should be relied upon, a sound basis allowing analogy; the apparent is that the question was not reported from Abu Hanifa in plain terms, hence the phrase they said. Ibn Abidin said: Ibn Wahban reported that an excuse may be the cutting of her milk after the pregnancy shows, the father having nothing to hire a wet nurse with, fearing for the child's life; adh-Dhakhira reports the disagreement on miscarriage before the term of breathing in the soul: the jurist Ali ibn Musa disapproved it, the water reaching the uterus leading to life and taking the status of life, like the egg of sacred game; Ibn Wahban concluded that its lawfulness rests on an excuse, or the absence of the sin of killing.
The Shafi'is: ar-Ramli reported that al-Muhibb at-Tabari held that the scholars differ on the nutfa before the forty days are complete: on one view it takes no status of miscarriage or of killing the buried-alive girl; on the other it is sacred: it can neither be corrupted nor brought out after settling in the uterus, unlike withdrawal before it settles there. Az-Zarkashi reports that al-Karabisi asked Abu Bakr ibn Abi Sa'id al-Furati about a man who made his slave girl drink a potion to expel her child: while it is a nutfa or an alaqa, he has the latitude, if Allah wills. Al-Ghazali hinted at this in the Ihya: withdrawal is not like abortion, which harms an existent; the first degree of existence is the nutfa falling into the uterus, mixed with the woman's water: corrupting it is harm; become an alaqa or a mudgha, the harm is graver; the soul breathed in and the form stable, graver still; the ruling of prohibition is most probable there. One may say: after the soul is breathed in, until birth, prohibition is certain; before it, it is not mere dislike but probable prohibition, strengthening as the term of breathing in nears; when the human form is known to the midwives, the ghorra falls due; a nutfa of fornication may carry the suggestion of lawfulness; left until the soul is breathed in, prohibition is certain; if the act was fornication with a woman in a state of war, she holds no sanctity from either angle. Ibn al-Labbana was asked about the child of a Muslim born of a dhimmi woman: he required nothing; the questioner objected that Ibn Hazm, in the book of jihad, holds the child Muslim by the land: respect is therefore certain, above all if the act aimed at her humiliation. Ad-Damiri said: the woman may do it with a pregnancy of fornication or otherwise, a slave girl with the consent of the master who possessed her, the question of al-Furati, or with the consent of another master; the Fatawa Qadi Khan and others hold it allowed, al-Ghazali having discussed it in the Ihya without explicit forbidding. Ar-Ramli said: the preferred view is forbidding after the soul is breathed in without restriction, and its lawfulness before. Al-Qalyubi said: abortion is allowed, even by medicine, before the soul is breathed in, unlike al-Ghazali.
The Malikis, on the held view, forbid aborting the fetus without restriction, before as after the forty days. Ad-Dardir said: the semen constituted in the uterus cannot be expelled, even before the forty days; the soul being breathed in forbids it by consensus. Ad-Dasuqi said: this is the held view; it is said that expulsion before the forty days is disliked. Abu al-Abbas al-Wansharisi said: the text of our imams forbids using what cools the uterus and expels the semen it holds, the critics and the researchers agreeing. Al-Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi said: the child holds three states: before existence, where withdrawal interrupts it, and it is allowed; after the uterus has seized the semen, where no one may touch it to cut off descent, as some vulgar traders do with their slave girls by giving them the potions that make the semen flow; after its settling and before the soul is breathed in, graver than the first two in forbidding, by the report: the lost fetus stands at the gate of Paradise saying: I shall not enter until my parents enter; the soul breathed in, it is the killing of a life without disagreement. Al-Lakhmi alone allows expelling what the uterus holds before the forty days while it is a nutfa, against the majority; the husband and wife agreeing on abortion within that span is therefore formally forbidden, never lawful; the mother owes the ghorra and correction, unless the husband gives up his right in the ghorra after the abortion. Izz ad-Din ibn Abd as-Salam was asked: may a woman use medicines that stop her from carrying? He answered: the woman may not use what destroys the strength by which pregnancy is accomplished. Al-Hattab said: Ibn Naji reports from al-Lakhmi that causing the loss of the water before the forty days is allowed, and Ibn al-Arabi in the Qabas: forbidden by agreement; Iyad reports in the Ikmal two views of the scholars, outside the school. Al-Burzali said: what cuts the semen or closes the uterus is forbidden on the word of Ibn al-Arabi; expelling the semen that reached the uterus: the view of the majority is absolute forbidding; al-Lakhmi alone: allowed before the forty days while it is a nutfa, like withdrawal; the first view is the more apparent: some made it the buried-alive girl.
The Hanbalis in the school: aborting the fetus is allowed while it is a nutfa, forbidden at the stage of alaqa, that is allowed before the forty days and forbidden after. Al-Mirdawi said: drinking a medicine to expel a nutfa is allowed, in the Wajiz and preferred in the Furu'; Ibn al-Jawzi in the rules of women: forbidden; the apparent word of Ibn Aqil in the Funun: abortion is allowed before the soul is breathed in, one view. Ibn Rajab said: the leniency of some jurists toward the woman on what is in her belly while the soul is not breathed in, like withdrawal, is a weak view: the fetus is a child already constituted, sometimes visible; withdrawal constitutes no child at all, and the child may be constituted despite withdrawal when Allah wills to create it; the Prophet (peace be upon him), asked about withdrawal, said: nothing obliges you to forgo withdrawal, every soul meant to be born, Allah creates it. Our companions stated that the child reached the stage of alaqa cannot be aborted: a constituted child, unlike the nutfa not yet constituted and that may never be. Al-Buhuti said: drinking a medicine to expel the nutfa is allowed; Ibn al-Jawzi in the rules of women: forbidden; the Furu' reports from the Funun that the buried-alive girl is the one past the seven passages, and recites: We created man from an extract of clay, down to: then We produced him as another creation: the soul is breathed in there, what the soul does not reach being not resurrected; from it one may draw that aborting it is not forbidden, one view.
Ibn Taymiyya was asked about the pregnant woman aborting deliberately, by a blow or by medicine: he answered: the ghorra is owed by her under the sunna of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the agreement of the imams: a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman, for the heirs of the fetus other than its mother; if the father exists, the ghorra comes to him, with the right to give it up for the woman; its value is a tenth of the diya, fifty dinars; most of the scholars add the freeing of a believing slave; failing that, fasting two consecutive months; failing that, feeding sixty poor.
If several men strike the belly of a woman and fetuses are expelled, their diyas split by shares, and each offender owes an expiation per fetus: three men striking the belly of a woman who expels three fetuses owe nine expiations, three each.
A ghorra falls due per expelled fetus: az-Zuhri, Malik, ash-Shafi'i, Ishaq and Ibn al-Mundhir held it, with no known opponent: it is the guarantee of a human being, multiplied per being like the diyas; if the fetuses are expelled alive at a term in which their like lives then die, each fetus carries the whole diya; if some come out alive and die and others come out dead, the living one carries the diya and the dead one the ghorra.
The nutfa or the alaqa expelled: the people of science agree that nothing attaches there: no ghorra, no expiation. Al-Mawardi said: the alaqa is the fresh blood into which the nutfa has passed, the first of the states of the clot; it follows the status of the nutfa: no sanctity, none of the three rulings attaching to it by consensus of the jurists: no ghorra, it does not make the slave girl a mother of the child, it does not complete the waiting period.
Ibn Rushd the grandfather said: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ruled for the fetus expelled from its mother's belly a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman, and the people of science agree on that ruling; the fetus of a free Muslim or Christian woman, from a Muslim or from the slave of her free master, carries a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman, when it leaves its mother's belly dead while she lives, male or female, form complete or not, once it is certain that it is a fetus: whatever makes the slave girl a mother of the child makes the ghorra fall on the author of the harm, each on his school: none of this holds any disagreement. Al-Ayni said: the fetus of which a part of the form has appeared: without it, it does not count as a child, and the alaqa holds none of these statuses, no known disagreement.
The Malikis add here a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman: the fetus, even at the stage of alaqa, carries a tenth of its mother, slave or free: once the fetus is separated, dead and not woken by a cry, from its living mother, a tenth of her diya falls due, or a tenth of her value if she is a slave; male or female, harm deliberate or accidental, the father or another.
Separation of the fetus may come from a blow, a fright or a smell; witnesses must attest the fright or the smell and the miscarriage that followed. The alaqa is the clotted blood that does not melt when hot water is poured on it; clotted blood that melts at hot water holds nothing: it cannot be measured before grave harm; what is measured before it is the mudgha, that is, failing an alaqa.
The mudgha expelled: the jurists differ when the woman is struck or given a scent to breathe and expels a mudgha, the flesh that is the first state of the body, named for the size of what one chews of meat. Abu Hanifa holds a hukuma there; Ibn Abidin reports from al-Ushmuni: if she expels a mudgha with no apparent form and reliable midwives attest it is the beginning of a human form were it left, no ghorra: a hukuma is due on our view. Malik holds an obligatory ghorra there. Ash-Shafi'i holds nothing there.
The Hanbalis say: if she expels a mudgha without form, no guarantee: it is not known that it is a fetus; if reliable midwives attest a hidden form, the ghorra is due: it is a fetus; the beginning of a human form were it left holds two views. Ibn Qudama said: the sounder: nothing, it did not take form, no guarantee like the alaqa, the base rule being innocence of debt; the second view: a ghorra, a beginning of human form, as if it had taken form; a view annulled by the nutfa and the alaqa.
Ibn Rushd said: disagreement on the form that requires the ghorra: Malik holds that whatever she expels, mudgha or alaqa, known as a child, carries the ghorra; ash-Shafi'i holds that nothing attaches while the form is unclear; the wiser is to consider the breathing in of the soul: the ghorra falls due once life is established there.
The jurists of the four schools agree that the ghorra is worth half a tenth of the diya, that is five camels, or a tenth of its mother's diya, that is five camels: it is the least amount the law fixed for harm, the arsh of the moudiha and the diya of the tooth, to which it is brought back.
Ash-Shafi'i said: Abu Hurayra reported:
The Prophet (peace be upon him) ruled for the fetus of a woman of Banu Lihyan, expelled dead, a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman; then the woman on whom he had ruled the ghorra died, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ruled that her inheritance went to her children and her husband, and that the expiation lay on her band of agnates.
reported by Abu Hurayra, cited by ash-Shafi'i in the Kitab al-Umm (6/103)
Ash-Shafi'i said: the ruling of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is clear: the ghorra for harm to the fetus, the inheritance for her children and husband, the expiation on the band of agnates even without inheritance, inheritance going to whom Allah gave it; the value of the ghorra is five camels, with no disagreement from anyone; with us: fifty dinars for the people of gold and six hundred dirhams for the people of silver: the band of agnates in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) paid half a tenth of the diya, five camels being half a tenth of the diya of a man.
At-Tahawi said: the consensus of the scholars fixes the ghorra of the fetus at half a tenth of the diya; the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) mentions the ghorra: a slave or a bondwoman, informing people what the ghorra is, then adds: or one hundred heads of small cattle: that is not part of the ghorra but its equivalent in sheep: the diya in sheep, for those who count them among the kinds of diya, is one thousand heads, the hundred being half a tenth; Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan counted it so; Abu Hanifa counted the diya only in camels, dirhams and dinars, Malik in camels, dinars and dirhams, ash-Shafi'i in camels only; what is reported from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is sounder.
As-Sarakhsi said: the diya is estimated at ten thousand: the compensation of the fetus, by agreement, is half a tenth of the diya, estimated at five hundred: the whole diya therefore is ten thousand. Az-Zayla'i said: hence the fetus of the free woman carries a tenth of her diya by consensus, which is the ghorra.
Malik reported from Rabi'a ibn Abi Abd ar-Rahman: the ghorra is valued at fifty dinars, or six hundred dirhams, and the diya of the free Muslim woman at five hundred dinars, or six thousand dirhams; Malik said: the diya of the free woman's fetus is a tenth of hers, the tenth being fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams. Malik said: I heard no one disagree that the fetus carries no ghorra until it leaves its mother's belly and comes out of it dead; he also said: if the fetus leaves its mother's belly alive then dies, the whole diya is due; the fetus holds life only by the waking cry: leaving alive, crying, then dying, the whole diya is due; and the slave woman's fetus carries a tenth of her value. Ibn Battal said: the diya of the free woman's fetus is its tenth: fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams, the diya of the free Muslim woman being five hundred dinars or six thousand dirhams: this is the view of most scholars. Ath-Thawri and Abu Hanifa differed: the value of the ghorra is five hundred dirhams, the diya of the woman being five thousand dirhams with them, by Umar ibn al-Khattab who fixed the diya of the people of silver at ten thousand dirhams, the view of Ibn Mas'ud. The proof of Malik and his followers: the Prophet (peace be upon him) having ruled the ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman, the Companions valued it at five camels, a tenth of its mother's diya: fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams; the route of the people of the Hijaz, who valued the diya at twelve thousand dirhams, is the sounder of Umar: the school of Uthman, Ali and Ibn Abbas.
Al-Mawardi said: no difference between male and female fetus in the ghorra: five camels, or in silver six hundred dirhams, or in gold fifty dinars: a tenth of its mother's diya. Abu Hanifa distinguishes: the male fetus carries half a tenth of its diya had it lived, the female a tenth of hers: matching in ruling, differing in cause, the difference weighing on the slave woman's fetus.
Ibn Qudama said: the ghorra is worth half a tenth of the diya: five camels, reported from Umar and Zayd, followed by an-Nakha'i, ash-Sha'bi, Rabi'a, Qatada, Malik, ash-Shafi'i, Ishaq and the holders of opinion: the least amount fixed by the law, the arsh of the moudiha and the diya of the tooth. Objection: the phalanx carries three fingers and a third, less than that. Answer: the text of ash-Shafi'i fixes a ghorra worth the arsh of the moudiha, five camels. If the two parents of the fetus are people of the book, its ghorra is half that of the Muslim; the fetus of the Magians carries a ghorra of forty dirhams; failing a slave of that value, the dirhams are required, need attaching there. When half a tenth of the diya of all kinds comes to five camels, fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams, no discussion; if the value of camels differs, half a tenth is taken in equivalent, the camels being worth forty dinars or four hundred dirhams. The apparent text of al-Khirqi has the ghorra valued in camels, the origin; our other companions value it in gold or silver: fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams; if the two differ, each is paid in his kind; if he belongs to both, the offender pays in the kind he wills, the choice in payment falling to the offender; it may also be valued at the lowest in every case; failing a ghorra available, one moves to five camels on the view of al-Khirqi, or fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams on the view of the others.
The jurists differ: once due, does the ghorra lie on the author of the harm or on his band of agnates? The Hanafis and the Shafi'is: it lies on the band of agnates, not on the author: it is an accidental harm. It is also reported from Jabir ibn Abdullah:
The Prophet (peace be upon him) fixed for the fetus a ghorra on the band of agnates of the killer, clearing her husband and her child.
reported by Ibn Abi Shayba in his Musannaf (27289)
The Malikis: it lies on the author of the harm.
An-Nawawi said: when the ghorra falls due, it lies on the band of agnates, not on the author: the school of ash-Shafi'i, Abu Hanifa and the Kufans; Malik and the Basrans place it on the author.
Ibn Abd al-Barr said: disagreement: Malik and al-Hasan ibn Hayy place it in the property of the author, the view also of al-Hasan al-Basri and ash-Sha'bi; others on the band of agnates: ath-Thawri, Abu Hanifa, ash-Shafi'i and their companions, the view of Ibrahim and Ibn Sirin.
Ibn Qudama said: the band of agnates carries the diya of the fetus dead with its mother when the harm to her is accidental or quasi-intentional, Ahmad stated it, by what al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reported:
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ruled for the fetus a ghorra, a slave or a bondwoman, on the band of agnates of the killer.
reported by Muslim (1682)
If she kills its mother deliberately, or the fetus dies alone, the band does not carry it. Ash-Shafi'i said: the band carries it in every case: it carries the little and the much, and harm to the fetus is never deliberate: its existence is not established at the moment of the blow. Our argument: the band does not carry what is below a third, and this is below it; the fetus dead alone, or the deliberate killing of the mother: the diya of the mother lies on her killer, that of the fetus alike: a harm is not split between its author and another, all of it lying on the killer, like the deliberate wound whose sepsis reaches a life.
The jurists differ on the author of harm to the fetus: is an expiation required of him? The Hanafis: no, Allah having bound the expiation to the diya:
Whoever kills a believer by mistake: the freeing of a believing slave, and a diya handed to his family.
Surah an-Nisa, 92
and the fetus holds neither diya nor expiation. The Malikis: no expiation; Malik held it good without making it obligatory: the expiation not being required by him in the deliberate case and required in the accidental one, the case wavering between the two, he held it good without obliging it. The Shafi'is: the expiation binds the author of the harm.
Ibn Qudama said: the freeing of a believing slave lies on everyone striking the cases mentioned, fetus alive or dead: the view of most scholars: al-Hasan, Ata, az-Zuhri, al-Hakam, Malik, ash-Shafi'i and Ishaq. Ibn al-Mundhir said: everyone we know among the scholars imposes the freeing of the slave with the ghorra on one who strikes the belly of a woman expelling a fetus, reported from Umar. Abu Hanifa said: no expiation, the Prophet (peace be upon him) having fixed no expiation when he fixed the ghorra.
Our argument: the word of Allah: Whoever kills a believer by mistake: the freeing of a believing slave, then: and if he was of a people between you and whom there is a treaty: a diya handed to his family and the freeing of a believing slave; the fetus of two believers, or of one of their kin, is judged believer by attachment: his Muslim heirs inherit from him and the unbeliever inherits nothing of him; if he is of the covenant people, he is of a people between us and whom there is a treaty; he is a life guaranteed by the diya: the freeing is due there as for the adult; the omission of mentioning the expiation does not block its obligation: the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: one hundred camels for a believing life, mentioning the diya in several places without mentioning the expiation required; he ruled the diya of the killed woman on the band of agnates of the killer without mentioning an expiation, due as well, the verse dispensing from mentioning it elsewhere. If the struck woman expels several fetuses, each fetus carries an expiation as it carries a ghorra or a diya; if several strike together a woman who expels a fetus, its diya or the ghorra splits by shares, and each offender owes an expiation, as when several kill one man; several fetuses: the diyas by shares, an expiation per each and per fetus: three striking the belly of a woman who expels three fetuses owe nine expiations, three each.
Ibn al-Mundhir said: everyone we know among the scholars imposes the freeing of the slave with the ghorra on one who strikes the belly of a woman expelling a fetus: the view of Ata, az-Zuhri, an-Nakha'i, al-Hasan al-Basri and al-Hakam; Malik, ash-Shafi'i, Ahmad and Ishaq: the expiation lies on him.
The jurists of the four schools agree that the ghorra is inherited: it comes to the heirs of the fetus, its status following that of the diya in inheritance. Ibn Rushd said: Malik, ash-Shafi'i and Abu Hanifa: it comes to the heirs of the fetus, inherited like the diya; Rabi'a and al-Layth: to the mother alone: they compared her fetus to one of her limbs.
Ibn Qudama said: the ghorra is inherited from the fetus as if it had been born alive: it is its diya and its compensation, its heirs inherit as if it had been killed after birth; Malik, ash-Shafi'i and the holders of opinion said it. Al-Layth said: it is not inherited: compensation to its mother, its fetus being like one of her limbs, like her hands.
Our argument: it is the diya of a free human being: inherited from him as if he had been born alive then died; the saying about the limb does not hold: were it a limb, its compensation would enter the diya of its mother like her hand; talion against her for it would not have been forbidden, nor the legal penalty because of it; the expiation would not be required for its killing; the freeing of its slave alone, or of her alone, would not be valid; and its life would not form after the death of its mother; while every life guaranteed by the diya is inherited, like the diya of the living.
On this basis: if she expels a dead fetus then dies, she inherits her share of its diya, then her heirs inherit from her; if she dies before it then expels it dead, neither inherits from the other; if it comes out alive then dies before her, then she dies, she inherits her share of its diya then her heirs inherit from her; if she dies before it then expels it dead, no inheritance; if it comes out alive, its mother dies before it then it dies, or she dies then it comes out alive then dies, its heirs inherit from her then it is inherited; if the heirs of the two differ on which died first, their status follows that of the drowned. If she expels a fetus dead or alive that dies, then expels another alive: the dead one carries the ghorra, the first living one the whole diya if its coming out falls at a term in which its like lives: the other inherits from it, then its heirs inherit if it dies; if the mother died after the first and before the second, the diya of the first is inherited by the mother and by the second fetus; then when the mother dies, the second inherits from her, its inheritance going after to its heirs; if she dies after the two, she inherits from both.
In practice, abortion after the soul is breathed in is a killing forbidden by consensus; before it, it stays lawful only with those holding it allowed while the fetus is a nutfa, most schools disapproving or forbidding it; every harm expelling a formed fetus carries a ghorra of five camels, fifty dinars or six hundred dirhams, per fetus, owed to the heirs of the fetus, on the band of agnates on the Hanafi and Shafi'i view, on the author on the Maliki view, with the freeing of a believing slave on the view of most, and it is inherited like the diya.