Qadiya fi Sukut al-Mudda alayhi an al-Iqrar wa al-Inkar - ضمن "Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Qaḍiyya fī Sukūt al-Mudda‘ā ‘alayhi ‘an al-Iqrār wa-l-Inkār ("A Case Regarding the Defendant's Silence Concerning Acknowledgment and Denial") is a legal treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (1311–1386 AH / 1894–1966 CE) examining a specific homicide case in light of Shafi'i jurisprudence .
Context and Manuscript
The treatise is preserved in a two-page manuscript within collection no. 4696 and was published as the thirty-first treatise in volume eighteen of al-Muallimi's collected works, Athār al-Mu‘allimī .
The Case and Legal Analysis
The treatise addresses a case in which two men were sued for intentional and wrongful homicide (qatl ‘amdan wa-‘udwānan) . The defendants answered that they had attacked the victim intending only to beat him, not to kill him; during the struggle, the victim drew a knife from one of their belts, and as they wrestled with him over the knife, a fatal stab wound was inflicted on the left side of his back . Both initially claimed, "I do not know from whom the stab came" . Subsequently, one of them confessed to being the killer, while the other—when pressed to either acknowledge or deny the claim—persisted in stating, "I do not know from whom" .
Al-Muallimi examined the books of the Shafi'i school and noted that he found no explicit legal ruling directly settling this precise scenario . Analyzing the principles of the school, he observed that jurists categorize a defendant's response into acknowledgment (iqrār) and denial (inkār), treating persistent silence as refusal (nukūl) . He argued that silence in this context does not mean literal muteness, but rather failing to provide a legally valid response, which includes uttering words that do not qualify as a valid answer .
Al-Muallimi cited al-Munawi's commentary on ‘Imād al-Riḍā regarding the requirements of valid claims and answers . He concluded that uttering "I do not know" regarding one's own action cannot be considered an acknowledgment, because acknowledgment must be founded upon certainty and has no equivalent analog in the legal chapter of acknowledgment . At the same time, it cannot serve as a valid denial oath, because an oath regarding one's own act must be taken definitively on commission or non-commission, rather than on the negation of knowledge (nafy al-‘ilm) . Consequently, if the defendant persists in this statement, the judge treats him as a refusing denier (al-munkir al-nākil), allowing the claimant to take the returned oath (al-yamīn al-mardūda) . The surviving text concludes after posing the question of whether a subsequent denial by the defendant would be admissible .
Answer updated