Wednesday, 29 April 2026 (12 Dhuʻl-Qiʻdah 1447 AH)
Question: A woman was in the habit of tying a band around her infant’s head to protect him from the cold. One day she woke up to find that her child had died because of the band, as it had slipped down and covered his nose, strangling him. Is she required to fast an expiation for this, or not?
The answer – and Allah is the One who grants success – is that our scholars have said: kaffārah (expiation) is not required in cases of killing by causation, and it is only required in cases of killing by direct action. This killing asked about is of the category of killing by causation, so she is not required to perform kaffārah.
This can be evidenced by the fact that Allah, exalted is He, has only made kaffārah obligatory upon one who kills by mistake, and the one who kills by causation is not truly a killer. For example, if a person digs a well in a road, and then a man comes, falls into it, and dies, the digger of the well has not killed this man; rather, the man is the one who threw himself into the well, so in reality he is the one who killed himself, and the owner of the well has merely caused (the situation).
As for the woman in the question: she did not kill her son by tying the band around his head. The child, by turning over in the bed until the band slipped down over his nose, is the one who strangled himself; the mother had no act in that. Her only act was tying the band around her son’s head, and that is not killing; it is only a cause leading to the killing. Thus, the one who performs the causative act of killing is not truly called a killer, and so he does not fall under the verse.
Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.2