Those who allow protected non-Muslims to testify against one another have also cited this verse from Sūrat al-Mā’idah, in which Allah says:

“O you who believe, when death approaches any of you, let two just men from among you, or two others from outside your community, bear witness when you make your bequest.”

And so the verse continues. Those scholars of Kūfah who adopted the apparent meaning of this verse then said: “This verse establishes the admissibility of protected non-Muslims’ testimony against Muslims. It therefore indicates, by an argument of greater reason, that their testimony against one another is admissible. Moreover, abrogating its apparent meaning does not entail abrogating its implied meaning and indication.”

The evidence supplied by this verse in support of the explicit rulings of Imam Ahmad and other hadith authorities—who follow the early generations in applying this verse and the hadiths that accord with it—is more cogent and compelling. His position is that protected non-Muslims’ testimony against Muslims is admissible concerning bequests made while travelling, because this is a situation of necessity. If their testimony concerning others is admissible, then its admissibility against one another is all the more evident.

Thus, necessity permits forms of testimony that would otherwise be inadmissible. For example, women’s testimony is accepted concerning matters that men cannot observe. Ahmad even expressly ruled that their testimony is admissible in cases involving prescribed punishments arising at gatherings exclusive to women, such as bathhouses, weddings, and the like. There is therefore even greater reason to accept the testimony of unbelievers against one another when Muslims do not mingle with them, if we adjudicate between them.

Allah has commanded us to judge between them. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stoned the two Jewish adulterers without hearing a confession from either of them or the testimony of any Muslim against them. Had their testimony against one another not been admissible, that would not have been permissible. And Allah knows best.