The Status of the “What is contrary to them involves rectitude” Element in Traditions Concerning Treatment of Contradictory Proofs and its Evaluation in Respect of Testimony and Judgment by non-Shiites

In treating the contradiction of narrations, narration opposing Sunnis takes precedence over narrations consistent with them; since it has been said that what is contrary to them involves rectitude. As far as the contradiction of narrations is concerned, this criterion has been taken for granted with respect to all Sunnis and in addition it is not specific to Shiites, for Sunnis reciprocally prefer the narration inconsistent with Shiite. However, there is disagreement about the generality of the criterion as well as its applicability to other areas including testimony and judgment and the present paper, in order to study this issue, has discussed it through a descriptive-analytical method and achieved the conclusion that the above mentioned argument is limited to resolving the contradiction of proofs and has no more more capability; consequently, relying on it to prove the condition of belief (being Shiite) for judge and witness is not defendable.