The Validation of Generalizing the Kafir’s Testimony against Muslim in Civil Cases

Testimony is one of the evidences for proving a case to court which has been accepted by all legal systems. Testifying is sometimes between Muslims against each others, Muslims against unbelievers, unbelievers against Muslims and unbelievers against unbelievers. According to the Islamic jurisprudential proofs, Muslim’s testimony in relation to unbelievers is accepted but unbeliever’s testimony in relation to Muslims is unaccepted in the civil cases based on the Quranic and hadith proofs and evidences. Therefore, in Imamiyah fiqh, it is rejected the generality of unbeliever’s testimony in legal matters against or on behalf of Muslims and according to the evidences it is not valid. But unbeliever’s testimony in relation to Muslim in the case of wills (testaments) is proved by the Quranic and hadith proofs. Islamic jurists with adducing to the mentioned proofs have only accepted unbeliever’s testimony in Muslims’ wills. But adducing the generality of some of the Quran verses is vitiated and also the universality of which has been expressed by some hadiths the study concludes that unbelievers with conditions not only in wills but also in some other cases can testify. Therefore, in this note with studying and criticizing the proofs of non-acceptance of unbeliever’s testimony in cases other than wills and the proofs of permissibility of the acceptance of dhimmīs’ testimony (Arabic: ذمی literally: protected people) in the issue of wills, it has examined and analyzed the possibility of generalizing unbelievers testimony to cases other than will and at the end with using the reason resulted from Islamic traditions, the definite (certain) tanqih al-manat (to extract the absolute or certain reason of hukm and extend to the similar cases) and a fortiori analog -qiyās- (Arabic: قیاس اولویت‎) with analytic-inferring method, it has been reasoned the possibility of generality out.