A judge’s letter to another judge is of two kinds:

1. The first concerns a matter in which the issuing judge has already given judgment and writes so that the addressee judge may execute it. Such a letter is admissible even when both the writer and the recipient sit in the same town, for a judicial ruling must be carried out in every circumstance; otherwise judgments would be suspended and litigation would proliferate.

2. The second is when a judge writes about something that has merely been established before him so that another judge may then pass judgment upon it. For this type to be accepted there must lie between the two courts a distance that allows the shortening of the prayer or more, because the letter in effect transmits testimony to the recipient, and that is not permitted when the distance is short.

The wording that conveys such establishment is: “It has been established before me that so-and-so has over so-and-so such-and-such.” This establishment is not itself a judgment; it is simply a report of what has been proven.

The Shaykh said: “It is permissible to convey that report over a distance at which the prayer is shortened or farther, even if the judge in whose presence the matter was established does not himself allow judgment to be rendered on its basis; for he is merely informing of what has been proven before him, while the judge to whom that proof reaches may rule upon it if he deems the evidence valid. Nor must the recipient judge be named; one may write, ‘To any judge of the Muslims to whose hands this letter may come,’ without specifying anyone. Whoever receives it is bound to accept it, for it is the letter of a judge acting within his jurisdiction that has reached another judge, and its acceptance is therefore obligatory just as if it had been addressed to a particular individual.”

And for a judge’s letter to another judge to be accepted, it is further required that the issuing judge have it attested