And whoever slays a believer deliberately intending to kill him with something that is lethal aware of the fact that he the slain is a believer his requital is Hell abiding therein and God is wroth with him and has cursed him He has removed him from His mercy and has prepared for him a mighty chastisement in the Fire this may be explained as referring to the person that deems such killing licit or as being his requital if he were to be requited but it would not be anything new if this threat of punishment were to be forgone because of what He says Other than that that is idolatry He forgives whomever He will Q. 448. It is reported from Ibn ‘Abbās that it the verse should be understood as it stands abrogating other verses of ‘forgiveness’. The verse in sūrat al-Baqara Q. 2178 clearly indicates that the one who kills deliberately should be killed in return or if he is pardoned then he has to pay the blood-money the value of which has already been mentioned. It is made clear in the Sunna that between the intentional and the unintentional there is a type of killing that is identified as being with quasi-deliberate intent shibh al-‘amd where the killer has slain with what in most cases is not a lethal implement. In such a case there is no right to retaliation and blood-money is paid instead so that it this type of killing is described as intentional but considered unintentional in that there applies the fixing of the period for payment and the sharing of the burden by the killer’s clan; in this case and that of intentional killing redemption is more urgent than in unintentional killing.
