Another opinion confines such arbitration to property matters alone, excluding cases of legal retaliation (qiṣāṣ), marriage, and the like. The arbitrator’s decision binds only the party who has consented to it; thus the murderer’s own consent is not sufficient to impose the blood money (diyah) upon his paternal clan (ʿāqilah). If either litigant withdraws his consent before the ruling is issued, judgment is barred. According to the predominant view, continued consent after the ruling is not a condition for its validity.

If the ruler appoints two judges in the same town and assigns to each of them a particular district, time, or type of case, the appointment is valid. According to the sound position it is likewise valid even when no such limitation is specified—unless the ruler stipulates that the two must sit together to render any judgment.

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If a judge becomes insane, loses consciousness, goes blind, or forfeits the capacity for ijtihād and accurate evaluation through heedlessness or forgetfulness, his judgments are no longer valid. The same applies—on the stronger view—should he fall into manifest sin. If these conditions subsequently disappear, his judicial authority is not automatically restored, again according to the stronger opinion.

The ruler may dismiss a judge in whom a defect has actually appeared, or even when none has appeared, provided a better or equally qualified replacement is available and the dismissal serves a public benefit, such as calming civil strife. Otherwise he should not do so—yet the dismissal is nonetheless effective in the predominant view. The accepted position is that the judge is not removed until news of his dismissal reaches him.

If the ruler writes, “When you read my letter you are dismissed,” the judge is dismissed the moment he reads it; the same applies if the letter is read aloud to him, according to the sound view. His judgeship also ends with his own death, and any authorization he had given for a specific task—such as selling the estate of a deceased person—lapses with his dismissal.

The stronger view is that the judge’s general deputy is likewise deposed unless that deputy was expressly permitted to appoint a successor, was told, “Appoint a deputy on your own behalf,” or was given an unrestricted mandate; but if he was told, “Appoint a deputy on my behalf,” the deputy is not deposed.

A judge is not removed by the death of the ruler, nor is the guardian of an orphan, and a charitable endowment (waqf) does not lapse with the death of the judge who supervised it.

After dismissal, the judge’s statement, “I ruled such-and-such,” is not accepted. If he and another witness testify to a judgment he himself issued, their testimony is rejected according to the correct opinion; but if they testify to the judgment of another judge whose ruling is valid, their testimony is accepted on the stronger view.

Before dismissal, however, his statement, “I have adjudicated such-and-such,” is accepted—unless the matter lies outside the area of his jurisdiction, in which case he is treated as if already dismissed.