Intihar (self-killing: its kinds and the jurists' rulings)

Intihar in the lexical sense is the verb "to slaughter oneself", but the jurists use it as the killing of a person by himself by any means. ¹

• Killing by an act: doing a forbidden deed that takes life. ²
• Killing by refusal: refusing a duty that keeps life, such as refusing food and drink until death. ²
• By intention, it is deliberate or by error. ²

• One who refuses what is lawful until he dies has killed himself, in the view of all scholars; one who is forced to eat what is forbidden to keep himself alive, and refuses until he dies, does the same. ²
• One who stops moving in water or fire while able to escape and dies is a self-killer; the one who threw him in bears no retaliation or diya, according to the general view. ²¹¹
• Refusing treatment in illness is not self-killing for most jurists; neglecting a simple, reliable treatment for a wound is treated by some like self-killing. ¹¹¹²

Self-killing is forbidden by agreement and counted among the greatest sins after polytheism, citing al-Nisa (4:29). The jurists hold the self-killer's burden greater than that of one who kills another. ¹²

• Moving from one cause of death to another: one who is between fire and drowning may choose, according to the majority. ¹²¹³
• A single fighter who charges enemy ranks while believing he will be killed, if he will inflict harm on the enemy; the Hanafis allow it on that condition. ¹³⁸
• Fighting unbelievers who use Muslims as cover, provided the aim is the unbelievers. ⁹

• If a man says to another "kill me" and is killed: the Hanafis treat it as a killing without retaliation but with a diya from the killer's property; Zufar and a Maliki view impose retaliation; the Hanbalis and the preferred Shafi'i view remove both. ⁹¹⁰
• One who compels another by a complete threat to kill the compelled is treated as a self-killer by the majority: no retaliation and no diya. ³

The jurists differ on one who wounds himself and is then wounded by another and dies of both; retaliation and diya depend on whether each wound was deliberate or by error. ⁴⁵

• Most jurists hold that the self-killer does not leave Islam, so the hadith on his eternal fire are taken for one who makes the act lawful, or as a warning. ⁵⁶
• One who attempts self-killing and survives is punished; no diya is due if he dies, according to most jurists. ⁶⁷
• Expiation for killing oneself, by error or deliberately, is disputed. ⁷
• The self-killer is washed and prayed over by most jurists; some refuse the prayer, and the Hanbalis have the imam refrain while others pray. ¹⁴

In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lesson the Sheikh asks whether it is permissible to tell a bereaved mother that her son was a suicide, and says that in his view someone who rode a rough sea and died is counted a suicide ¹⁵.

The Sheikh asks whether it is permissible to tell a bereaved mother that her son was a suicide, and says that in his understanding the sharia ruling on someone who rode the sea while it was rough and died is that he is a suicide; he adds that prevention is better than cure ¹⁵.