Please let me know the situation of someone who negligently causes the death of some people but can not fast two months for each of the deaths or free a slave for each of the deaths. What should he do? What if he is unable to contact the family members of the deceased people or it will be an extraordinarily difficult task to do so? What then are his options? In that case will the punishment for a male victim be the same as that of a female victim? What if the total number of victims involved is not definitely known? Kindly help me by quoting sources. Thank you in anticipation of your response.

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

An accidental death is a death which occurs without intending to kill and without aiming to kill a particular person, or without intending one these two cases. For example, shooting a prey or any objective but hitting a person accidentally, or running over him with his car without intending to do so. Allaah determined the expiation for whoever accidentally kills others as He Says (what means): {And whoever kills a believer by mistake, then the freeing of a believing slave and a compensation payment [Diyyah] presented to his [i.e. the deceased’s] family [is required], unless they give [up their right as] charity. But if he [i.e. the deceased] was from a people at war with you and he was a believer, then [only] the freeing of a believing slave; and if he was from a people with whom you have a treaty, then a compensation payment presented to his family and the freeing of a believing slave. And whoever does not find [one or cannot afford to buy one], then [instead] a fast for two months consecutively, [seeking] acceptance of repentance from Allaah. And Allaah is Ever All-Knowing, All-Wise.}[Quran 4:92]. So the killer is obliged to do two things: To pay a Diyyah (blood money) and to expiate; the amount of expiation is mentioned in Fatwa 86122. Also, he should endeavour to take the blood money to the heirs of the dead by using the modern ways of communications or by way of the authorities in order to contact the heirs or look for their residence. If he is not able to take it to them, then Allaah does not burden any soul more than it can bear. However, their right should be preserved so much so that if they [the heirs] appear [one day] or that it becomes possible to reach them, then the killer should give them their right.

As regards the expiation, it is to free a Muslim slave, and if one cannot find any, then he is obliged to fast for two consecutive months. If the killer is unable to do the above two options because of his advanced age or due to a chronic disease, then the scholars have two opinions on this:

The first opinion is that he is obliged to fast, but he is not required to do anything else because Allaah did not mention it and had it been an obligation on him to do anything else, Allaah would have mentioned it. This is the view of the majority of scholars.

The second opinion is that the killer is obliged to feed sixty poor persons because it is an expiation in which freeing a slave and fasting two consecutive months are mentioned. By analogy it applies to the above case, as in all other cases in which freeing a slave and fasting two months are mentioned, feeding sixty poor persons is also mentioned as a last alternative. This is the view of the Shaafi'ee school and one of the two opinions of Imaam Ahmad. We clarified this issue in details in Fataawa 88305 and 89446.

Moreover, it is an obligation on the killer to expiate for each person he killed. However, if he does not know the number of people whom he killed, then he has to contact the authorities to find out the number of the people who were killed, and we do not think that this is difficult.

As regards the blood money of a woman, it is half of that of a man. Ibn Al-Munthir and Ibn 'Abdul-Barr said: 'The scholars agreed in a consensus that the blood money of a woman is half that of a man.' With regard to the expiation, the scholars agreed in a consensus that it is the same for the male and the female.

Allaah Knows best.