Editing Openai/6947f938-c5ac-800f-a335-68acb875307e (section)

==== - ❌ “If a woman is killed, another woman must be killed” → incorrect ====
* ❌ “If a slave is killed, another slave must be killed” → incorrect
* ✅ “Only the killer is liable, and retaliation cannot exceed equivalence” → correct

Your question is a serious, legitimate one, and classical scholars discussed it for centuries — so you’re not “missing something obvious”. You’re noticing a linguistic surface effect that needs legal and grammatical context.

If you want next, I can:
* show how later verses resolve remaining ambiguity,
* explain why jurists still disagreed on cross-category qiṣāṣ, or
* compare this verse with biblical and pre-Islamic law codes.

Just tell me.