Fourth: When the suspicion is strong, the amir may strike the accused with a discretionary disciplinary beating, not a fixed legal penalty, in order to compel him to speak truthfully about the matter with which he has been implicated and accused. If he confesses while being beaten, his circumstances in relation to the matter for which he was beaten must be taken into consideration. If he was beaten in order to make him confess, the confession is invalid. But if he was beaten to make him speak truthfully about his circumstances and he confessed under the beating, the beating must be stopped and his confession elicited anew. If he repeats it, he is held to the second confession, not the first. If he limits himself to the first confession and does not repeat it, there is no impediment to acting upon that first confession, although we disapprove of doing so.

Fifth: If a person repeatedly commits crimes and is not deterred by the fixed legal penalties, the amir may continue to imprison him if people are harmed by his crimes, until he dies, while providing his food and clothing from the public treasury. This is done to ward off his harm from the people, even though this does not fall within the authority of judges.

Sixth: The amir may administer an oath to the accused in order to ascertain his circumstances and to impress upon him the seriousness of disclosing the truth concerning an accusation involving the rights of Allah Most High or the rights of human beings. There is no objection to his making the accused swear by divorce, emancipation, or charity, as in the oaths taken in the ruler’s pledge of allegiance.

The judiciary may not make anyone swear without a legal right to do so, nor may it go beyond an oath by Allah Most High to one involving divorce or emancipation.