• If a person is suspected of a major sin—murder, fornication, theft, or defamation—but the investigation clears him of any wrongdoing, his right to testify is not forfeited.

• Someone who is known for habitual lying, whose falsehood is evident and consistent, is barred from giving testimony.

• A man who happens, in recounting his travels or business, to embellish the story so as to flatter himself—provided that such exaggeration is not his normal practice—may still testify, so long as he is otherwise recognised for uprightness.

• The testimony of an upright individual who has levelled an accusation of fornication (qadhf) remains admissible until the prescribed punishment is actually carried out, for the final outcome is still unknown.

• ʿAbd al-Malik maintained that a slanderer’s testimony is rejected the moment he utters the accusation, even if the hadd has not yet been enforced. Mālik’s opinion is stronger, for God did not annul the slanderer’s testimony until after flogging, unless he repents; this is also the view of Ibn al-Qāsim, Ibn Wahb, and Ashhab.

• Anyone who has received a prescribed penalty—whether for qadhf, fornication, theft, or something else—may testify in all matters once his repentance becomes evident and his conduct improves. A number of Mālik’s disciples agreed.

• Others have said that such a person’s testimony is accepted in everything except the very type of case for which he was punished; this was the stance of ʿAbd al-Malik and Muṭarrif, and it is the preference of Sahnūn and al-Wāqir.

• Mālik does not require a repentant slanderer to declare his former accusation false; he looks instead for a clear increase in righteousness and sound behaviour. This was related from him by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and others.

• Ismāʿīl, however, said that the slanderer’s repentance is not valid until he explicitly disavows his earlier charge, basing his view on ʿUmar’s ruling in the case of Abū Bakrah.