In this excerpt, Ibn Ḥajar relates how the question of testimony in court divided the qāḍī andthe jurists and generated a diversity of opposing views. He notes that the law of witness testimony was a particularly sensitive topic because the determination of who was a trustworthy witness had implications for social order. In her discussion of early judges and judicial consultation of jurists in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Nahed Samour uses this source to contrast the system described by Ibn Ḥajar, in which authority over difficult legal questions was divided, with an example from an earlier period when authority was not so divided—namely, the tenure of the Egyptian judge Khālid b. Ṭāliq [sic= Ṭalīq]. In that case, jurists opposed the judge’s rulings, but ultimately the two views were balanced in a final ruling and were delivered together.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.