Ta'dil (certifying a witness's probity; equalising shares; correcting postures in prayer; the value-based division)

التعديل

Ta'dil is equalising or setting straight; in law it is certifying a witness or narrator as upright. A judge must seek the probity of the witnesses if he does not know it, according to the Shafiis, Hanbalis, Malikis, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad; Abu Hanifa accepts the apparently upright, except in penalties and retaliation. Settling the postures in prayer is obligatory: a pillar for the majority and a duty short of obligation for the Hanafis. Division by value divides a common thing by worth rather than by parts; the majority also allow a change of value in the fixed penalty for hunting in pilgrimage. ¹ ² ³

Overview

Ta'dil is equalising or setting straight; in law it is certifying a witness or a narrator and describing him as upright. ¹

Related term

Tajrih is showing what discredits a witness. ¹

Certifying witnesses

The judge must seek the probity of witnesses whose probity he does not know, according to the Shafiis, Hanbalis, Malikis, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad, and may not accept testimony without it. Abu Hanifa accepts a Muslim who appears upright and does not inquire until the opponent objects, on the hadith «Muslims are upright, each to the others, except one flogged for slander»; he requires full inquiry in penalties and retaliation, since penalties are averted by doubts. ²

Settling the postures in prayer

All agree that settling the postures, meaning stillness in bowing, prostration, sitting between the two prostrations and standing upright, is obligatory. The majority make it a pillar whose omission voids the prayer, while the Hanafis make it a duty that requires repetition without voiding the prayer, on the hadith of the one who prayed badly. ²

Division by value

A common thing is divided by value rather than by counting parts, as with land whose parts differ in fertility or distance from water; the part equal in value to another is one share. ² ³

Changing the value of the hunting penalty

The majority hold that the penalty for killing a like game is a choice, so one may move from the like to its value in food or fasting a day per measure, on the verse «do not kill game while you are in the state of consecration». Opinions differ on other penalties. ³

Reference

The details are under the entries on certifying (tazkiya) and the pilgrim's state (ihram). ³

Command, prohibition and capacity

The duty of complying with prohibitions by avoidance, and with commands according to one's capacity; in Abu Hurayra's hadith 'what I forbid you, avoid, and what I command you, do of it what you can' — its occasion, per Ibn Rajab, being the questioner who asked when hajj was imposed 'every year?' until he said it three times and was told 'had I said yes it would have been obligatory and you could not have managed'; Ibn Rajab derives from it the prohibition of asking about what is not needed, of asking out of obstinacy, frivolity or mockery, of asking about what God has hidden from His servants, and of questions on the lawful and unlawful that might draw stricter rulings, noting that licence to ask was for bedouins and delegations, not the residents of Medina; and in Abu Sa'id al-Khudri's hadith — the thirty-fourth — the three grades of changing evil by hand, then tongue, then heart, according to capacity, that being the weakest of faith, corroborated by Ibn Masud's report that whoever struggles against the successors who say what they do not do with hand, tongue or heart is a believer, and beyond the heart there is not a mustard-seed of faith (pp. 218–222, 698–699).

Ta'dil (certifying a witness's probity; equalising shares; correcting postures in prayer; the value-based division)

At a glance