and from assistants whose souls are base and whose hearts are diseased by preferring this world to the Hereafter.

3 – If such a severe warning concerns the just judge, then what of judges who are oppressive, tyrannical, and ignorant—those who have turned religious office and judicial authority into mere tools for amassing unlawful wealth?!

4 – Because of this ḥadith and others that highlight the danger of judging and the gravity of the office, many God-fearing people fled from it in search of safety. Abu Qilābah was invited to accept a judgeship, so he fled from Iraq to greater Syria. Sufyān al-Thawrī was likewise called to it; he escaped to Basrah and died while in hiding. Abū Ḥanīfah was beaten to compel him to accept the post, yet he refused until he died. Al-Shaʿbī said, “The judiciary is an ordeal and a calamity; whoever enters it exposes himself to destruction.”

Yet there are other ḥadiths and reports that encourage accepting judicial office and adhering to the path of justice. The verifying scholars therefore adopted a reconciliatory stance between the two sets of texts: the warning applies to one who seeks the judgeship and then fails to fulfill its requirements, whereas the encouragement is for one who is appointed without asking for it and who approaches the task with a heart poised between fear and hope.
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