[1][2][3] In the modern era, diya plays a role in the legal system of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
[4] In Iran, the diya for recognized religious minorities (Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians, with the exception of evangelical Protestants) is half that of a Muslim man.
'Ali said, "By Him Who made the grain split (germinate) and created the soul, we have nothing except what is in the Quran and the ability (gift) of understanding Allah's Book which He may endow a man, with and what is written in this sheet of paper."
"Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, an early caliph admired for his piety and scholarship, ruled on Diya: Yahya related to me from Malik that he heard that Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz gave a decision that when a Jew or Christian was killed, his blood-money was half the blood-money [diya] of a free Muslim.Islamic law treats homicide and unintentional homicide (not just bodily injury and property damage), as a civil dispute between believers,[10] rather than corrective punishment by the state to maintain order.
Under sharia practice, tort-like civil liability settlement is limited to property damage, while in the cases of bodily injury and death, the "blood money" diyah compensation is fixed by a formula (such as the value of certain number of camels).
[17] The diyah value in case the victim was a non-Muslim (Dhimmi) or slave varied in the sharia of different schools of Islamic law.
[23] The Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali code of sharia have historically ruled that Qisas does not apply against a Muslim, if he murders any non-Muslim (including dhimmi) or a slave for any reason.
[22][26] But Abdul Aziz bin Mabrouk Al-Ahmadi narrates that the Hanafi scholars say that Musta'min is entitled to Diyya equal to Diyya of a Muslim, and he quotes this opinion from a group of other Muslim scholars, including some of the Companions of the Prophet, and he also narrates that this is one of the opinions of the Hanbalis if the killing occurred intentionally.
[27] In the modern era, diya plays a role in the legal system of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
[34] Human Rights Watch and United States' Religious Freedom Report note that in sharia courts of Saudi Arabia, "The calculation of accidental death or injury compensation is discriminatory.
)[37] Diyah in Saudi has been controversial, as in a 2013 case, where a father molested and murdered his five-year-old daughter, but avoided jail by paying money to her mother.
[7] However, according to Mohammad H. Tavana, it is unclear if the diya between men and women is equal in cases of bodily harm; that has been left to the Iranian courts to decide.
[7] In Iraq, the Bedouin tribes carry on the practice of demanding blood money, though this does not necessarily obviate the proceedings of the secular judicial system.
[41] The new Ordinance replaced British era criminal laws on bodily hurt and murder with sharia-compliant provisions, as demanded by the Shariat Appellate Bench of Pakistan's Supreme Court.
[41] The democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif, in 1997, replaced the Ordinance by enacting the qisas and diyah sharia provisions as the law, through an Act of its Parliament.
[42] The Pakistan Penal Code modernized the Hanafi doctrine of qisas and diya by eliminating distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims.
[42][43] Another issue is the intentional murder or bodily harm of poor people by wealthy individuals, where the only punishment the perpetrators suffer is paying monetary compensation that constitutes a small fraction of their income or wealth.
Despite this informal nature, there is a series of generally accepted principles, agreements, and ideas that constitute xeer, referred to collectively as "xissi adkaaday".
[46]Mag payment most often takes the form of livestock usually camels which are found in the highest concentration in Somali inhabited territories and prized as a measure of wealth.
[47] Daaif notes that a concept similar to diyah was present in pre-Islamic Arabia, where it was paid in terms of goods or animals rather than cash.