Section
A judge issues no ruling on the strength of a single witness except for the sighting of the Ramadan crescent, according to the sounder opinion.

Proving fornication requires four male witnesses, while a confession of fornication is established by two witnesses—though another view demands four.

In disputes over property, or over financial contracts such as a sale, mutual cancellation (iqāla), transfer of debt (ḥawāla), guarantee (ḍamān), and in monetary rights such as an option (khiyār) or a deferred term (ajal), the standard is two men, or one man together with two women.

For every other matter—whether it involves a prescribed punishment of Allah Most High or a human right—and for issues that men customarily observe, like marriage, divorce, taking a wife back, conversion to Islam, apostasy, wounding, discrediting or accrediting a witness, death, insolvency, agency, guardianship, or testimony upon testimony, two male witnesses are required.

Matters whose knowledge lies with women, or that men rarely witness—such as virginity, childbirth, menstruation, breastfeeding, and defects hidden beneath clothing—may be proven by the testimonies already mentioned, or by four women alone.

Anything that cannot be established by the testimony of one man and two women cannot be established by one man together with the claimant’s oath. Whatever can be established by two men—or by one man and two women—can likewise be established by one man plus the claimant’s oath, except for women’s hidden defects and the like. Nothing is proven by two women together with an oath.

The claimant takes the oath only after his single witness has testified and been declared upright; in that oath he must affirm the truthfulness of the witness. If he declines to swear and instead demands that his opponent take the oath, he is entitled to do so; and should the opponent refuse, the claimant may then take the compensatory oath, according to the more reliable opinion.

If a person possesses a female slave and her child, and another claims, “This woman was my concubine—she conceived this child while under my ownership,” and backs the claim with one witness and his own oath, the status of istilād (her being an umm walad) is established, but, according to the sounder view, neither the paternity nor the freedom of the child is proven.

If someone is holding a male slave and another asserts, “He belonged to me and I set him free,” and he supports that assertion with one witness and his oath, the dominant opinion is that the slave is taken from the current possessor and set free.

When heirs claim property that belonged to their deceased relative and produce a single witness, any heir who swears along with that witness receives his individual share and does not have to share it with the others. The right of any heir who is present and legally competent yet refuses to swear lapses. If, however, an heir is absent, a minor, or mentally incapacitated