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If the two witnesses agree on the wording in their testimony but differ regarding the locations, their testimony is admissible. This follows without dispute from Ibn al-Qāsim’s position that testimony concerning statements may be combined when the wording agrees, or when the wording differs but the meaning agrees, even if the gatherings and locations differ.
If, however, both the wording and the meaning differ, while the testimony entails the same legal consequence—for example, one witness testifies that he said to someone, “You adulterer,” while the other testifies that he said, “So-and-so is not your father”—the well-known position is that the testimony is inadmissible. A comparable case is where one witness testifies that a man reached a divorce settlement with his wife, while the other testifies that he divorced her three times: on the basis that she is irrevocably divorced from him, the couple are separated on the strength of their testimony. According to this position, the person against whom the two witnesses testify would receive the prescribed punishment, since their testimony agrees in establishing his liability to it. Another comparable case is where one witness testifies that he said, “If I ride the mount, my wife is divorced,” while the other testifies that he said, “If I enter the house, my wife is divorced,” and he then both rides the mount and enters the house. There is disagreement concerning this case too; the well-known position is that the testimony cannot be combined and is inadmissible.
If both the wording reported in the testimony and the legal consequences it entails differ, there is agreement that the testimony cannot be combined. As for acts, according to Ibn al-Qāsim’s school, testimony concerning them cannot be combined even when the locations agree, except where the act is connected to speech, as in drinking wine. The prescribed punishment for this is based on making an accusation of adultery: when a person drinks, he becomes intoxicated; when intoxicated, he speaks deliriously; and when he speaks deliriously, he makes false accusations. Another example is a man who swears, on pain of divorce, not to enter a house: one witness testifies that he entered it on Saturday, while another testifies that he entered it on Friday or Sunday, or something similar. Muhammad ibn Maslama and Ibn Nāfiʿ said that testimony concerning acts cannot be combined in any circumstances. Ibn al-Mājishūn, however, combines testimony concerning acts when the witnesses agree in their testimony to adultery, even if the locations differ. If the acts themselves differ, the testimony is inadmissible even if the legal consequence they entail is the same.
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The scholars disagreed over whether the testimony of one who accuses another of adultery becomes inadmissible through the accusation itself, or whether it remains valid until