—for the victim’s heirs. On another occasion Mālik said that such testimony counts as luʾth and renders qasāmah obligatory only in cases of deliberate murder, whereas the first opinion is the authoritative view of his school. This, then, is one of the two avenues by which qasāmah is established according to Mālik.

The second avenue is that the slain man’s heirs, when accusing someone of the killing, come forward with luʾth consisting of some evidence that the killing or the blow was actually seen. Luʾth may be a single upright witness or a group whose testimony is not legally conclusive, and Mālik expressed more than one opinion regarding a group that is not fully upright. It has also been claimed that even a lone witness who is not upright constitutes luʾth sufficient to impose qasāmah, yet this is a weak view, neither applied in practice nor given weight.

Another opinion holds that if an upright witness testifies to the infliction of a wound, but the wounded man then eats, drinks, survives for a time, and never demands retaliation, no qasāmah is due. The more widely transmitted position from Mālik, however, is that qasāmah is required in such a case.

Women’s and children’s testimony is inadmissible in qasāmah; this is the settled doctrine of Mālik according to the majority of his students. Some have maintained that the testimony of women is luʾth that obliges qasāmah, but the first view is the sounder.

If a man confesses to an accidental killing and is deemed trustworthy and free of suspicion in that confession, qasāmah passes to the heirs of the victim. Should they refuse to swear, they forfeit all claim.

A report from Mālik further states that when a corpse is found and a man is discovered nearby holding a sword or another murderous instrument marked with traces of blood, this amounts to luʾth that obliges qasāmah in favor of the victim’s heirs if they allege that he killed their relative. Ibn al-Jallāb mentioned this case; it is rare in Mālik’s corpus yet well known from al-Shāfiʿī. And anyone suspected of shedding blood, among those upon whom suspicion naturally falls