two witnesses. According to the established school, this is governed by the rules of testimony: if the identification concerns a matter requiring four witnesses, then four are required, and so on.

His statement, “and conveyance,” has several forms. One of them will come, Allah willing, in the chapter on a judge’s letter to another judge: when one judge sends a letter to another judge, it must be carried and delivered to the addressee by two upright men, who then testify to it.

This applied in earlier times, when there was no postal service. If a judge wished to write to another judge, he would write the letter, then bring two men, read it to them, and have them attest to its contents. He would then say, “Take it to Judge So-and-so.” When they reached him, they would testify that this was a letter from the first judge to the second.

A second form of conveyance is when the judge sends someone to investigate the condition of the witnesses. We have previously mentioned that, if the judge does not know the witnesses’ standing, he must inquire about them. If he sends someone to inquire about them, then, according to the view followed by the author, the persons sent must be two men. Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—held that one is sufficient.

Thus, translation, attestation of integrity, impugnment, identification, and conveyance are five matters. According to the established school, the requirement for plurality in them is the same as in testimony. The view followed by the author is that two men suffice in these matters, while Shaykh al-Islam held that one suffices, because their purpose is clarification and identification: they are reports, not testimony. This is why they are valid even in writing. According to the view that they constitute testimony, however, direct oral communication is required; meaning that if he wrote—