that in accordance with whatever the deceased himself had been doing.

A judge should not scrutinize the judgments of those who held office before him unless the former judge was known for wrongdoing; in that case it is permissible to examine both the outward form and the inner substance of his rulings, for he may have given them a respectable appearance. The judgments of a just magistrate, however, are not to be disturbed—were such review allowed, no one’s decision would ever remain in force.

Nor may the deputy of a judge record in the register the cases whose evidence he has established; if he does, the entry is not valid unless it is ratified by the judge who appointed him. If the judge’s own register authorizes him to appoint that deputy, then whatever the deputy records is like the judge’s own record, and his ruling is then equivalent to the ruling of two judges whom the imām has commissioned.

When a judge endorses a document and hands it to its owner, and the owner later returns it, the judge may adjudicate on the basis of what it contains provided he recognizes his own seal and mark; yet he must be especially vigilant here, given the corruption and stratagems that have arisen among people.

It is impermissible for a judge to rule on the basis of his personal knowledge in a ḥadd (fixed punishment), in any civil right, or in any matter on which he has previously given testimony along with others. In such cases he rules on the testimony of others, together with the claimant’s oath if the claim concerns property; otherwise the matter is referred to the imām, and the judge serves as a witness, alongside the other witness, to what he knows.

Even if he becomes aware of a violation requiring one of Allah’s prescribed penalties, he must not carry it out solely on what he has seen until upright witnesses testify before him—either to the confession made in his presence or to what they heard of the statements and claims. He rules by their testimony, not by his own knowledge. This is the distilled position of Mālik, and we have set out the proof for it in al-Tamhīd.

A group of Medinan scholars—including ʿAbd al-Malik and his father ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah—held that whatever an accused person confesses before the judge in the courtroom suffices for the judge to issue judgment. They argued that he may do so just as, by consensus, he may determine the probity of witnesses through his own knowledge, refrain from ruling on the basis of the hidden defects he is aware of, and pay no attention to the testimony that has been offered.