Others maintain that, should the husband refuse to swear, the judge enters the matter against him as an outstanding liability and then leaves him and his wife as they are.
If a slave claims that his master has set him free, the master is not required to take an oath unless the slave can produce a witness to support the claim.
If a woman who is her master’s slave asserts that she has borne him a child and he denies it, yet she produces one witness who heard him admit intercourse with her and two women—or even a single woman—who testify that she actually gave birth, she is entitled to demand that her master swear with respect to what she has alleged.
Should she instead present two male witnesses to his acknowledgment of intercourse and two female witnesses to her childbirth, the child is attributed to him and she becomes an umm walad (a slave-mother), unless he claims that, after that intercourse, he observed an istibrāʾ period (a waiting interval to ensure the womb was clear).
When a man alleges that another person whose free status is unknown is his slave, the defendant is not obliged to swear. If the claimant then produces a single witness, he may swear together with that witness and thereby establish ownership on the basis of one witness plus an oath—just as though he had produced two witnesses, according to those who do not require an oath to accompany a single witness.
If someone says that he hired an animal from another, the owner is not made to swear unless people of his social standing are known to hire out such an animal for the stated fee.
If a man claims that he placed a deposit of one thousand dirhams with another and that it was lost, while the defendant replies, “Rather, I repaid it to you against the debt I owed you,” the defendant’s word is accepted upon his oath, and the amount is treated as settlement of his debt.
Likewise, when one man owes another one thousand dirhams and also holds a deposit of the same amount for him, and he pays him one thousand saying, “This is the debt I owed you; the deposit was lost,” but the owner says, “No, this is my deposit,” the statement of the payer prevails with an oath.
Whoever claims to be the sole heir of a deceased person—saying, for instance, “I am his brother”—and produces a single witness who confirms the claim and states that he knows of no other heirs, such testimony is, in Mālik’s view, inadmissible unless the witness specifically adds that statement. Mālik never differed on this point, nor did his colleagues oppose him. Once the witness does make that declaration, the testimony is deemed valid.