Judgments (Ahkaam)
كتاب الأحكام
Chapter 3: The reward of judging according to Al-Hikmah
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Do not wish to be like anyone, except in two cases: (1) A man whom Allah has given wealth and he spends it righteously. (2) A man whom Allah has given wisdom (knowledge of the Qur'an and the Hadith) and he acts according to it and teaches it to others."
Chapter 6: He who seeks to be a ruler will be held responsible
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "O `Abdur-Rahman bin Samura! Do not seek to be a ruler, for if you are given authority on your demand, you will be held responsible for it, but if you are given it without asking for it, then you will be helped (by Allah) in it. If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then do what is better and make expiation for your oath."
Chapter 7: What is disliked regarding the authority of ruling
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You people will be keen to have the authority of ruling which will be a thing of regret for you on the Day of Resurrection. What an excellent wet nurse it is, yet what a bad weaning one it is!"
Two men from my tribe and I entered upon the Prophet. One of the two men said to the Prophet, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! Appoint me as a governor," and so did the second. The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "We do not assign the authority of ruling to those who ask for it, nor to those who are keen to have it."
Chapter 9: Causing people troubles and difficulties
I saw Safwan and Jundab and Safwan's companions when Jundab was advising. They said, "Did you hear something from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)?" Jundab said, "I heard him saying, 'Whoever does a good deed in order to show off, Allah will expose his intentions on the Day of Resurrection (before the people), and whoever puts the people into difficulties, Allah will put him into difficulties on the Day of Resurrection.'" The people said (to Jundab), "Advise us." He said, "The first thing of the human body to purify is the `Abdomen, so he who can eat nothing but good food (Halal and earned lawfully) should do so, and he who does as much as he can that nothing intervene between him and Paradise by not shedding even a handful of blood, (i.e. murdering) should do so."
Chapter 15: To bear witness as to the writer of a stamped letter; and the letter of a ruler to a governor, and of a judge to a judge
When the Prophet (ﷺ) intended to write to the Byzantines, the people said, "They do not read a letter unless it is sealed (stamped)." Therefore the Prophet (ﷺ) took a silver ring----as if I am looking at its glitter now----and its engraving was: 'Muhammad, Apostle of Allah'.
Chapter 18: Whoever gave judgements of Li'an in the mosque
(the brother of Bani Sa`ida) A man from the Ansar came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and said, "If a man finds another man sleeping with his wife, should he kill him?" That man and his wife then did Lian in the mosque while I was present.
Chapter 0
Chapter 1: “Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those of you who are in authority…”
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Whoever obeys me, obeys Allah, and whoever disobeys me, disobeys Allah, and whoever obeys the ruler I appoint, obeys me, and whoever disobeys him, disobeys me."
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Surely! Everyone of you is a guardian and is responsible for his charges: The Imam (ruler) of the people is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects; a man is the guardian of his family (household) and is responsible for his subjects; a woman is the guardian of her husband's home and of his children and is responsible for them; and the slave of a man is a guardian of his master's property and is responsible for it. Surely, everyone of you is a guardian and responsible for his charges."
Chapter 4: To listen to and obey the Imam
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "You should listen to and obey, your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin."
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "If somebody sees his Muslim ruler doing something he disapproves of, he should be patient, for whoever becomes separate from the Muslim group even for a span and then dies, he will die as those who died in the Pre-lslamic period of ignorance (as rebellious sinners). (See Hadith No. 176 and 177)
The Prophet (ﷺ) sent an army unit (for some campaign) and appointed a man from the Ansar as its commander and ordered them (the soldiers) to obey him. (During the campaign) he became angry with them and said, "Didn't the Prophet (ﷺ) order you to obey me?" They said, "Yes." He said, "I order you to collect wood and make a fire and then throw yourselves into it." So they collected wood and made a fire, but when they were about to throw themselves into, it they started looking at each other, and some of them said, "We followed the Prophet (ﷺ) to escape from the fire. How should we enter it now?" So while they were in that state, the fire extinguished and their commander's anger abated. The event was mentioned to the Prophet (ﷺ) and he said, "If they had entered it (the fire) they would never have come out of it, for obedience is required only in what is good." (See Hadith No. 629. Vol. 5)
Chapter 12: A governor can sentence to death a person without consulting the Imam
Qais bin Sa`d was to the Prophet (ﷺ) like a chief police officer to an Amir (chief).
Chapter 14: A judge can give judgements for the people according to his knowledge
Hind bint `Utba bin Rabi`a came and said. "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! By Allah, there was no family on the surface of the earth, I like to see in degradation more than I did your family, but today there is no family on the surface of the earth whom I like to see honored more than yours." Hind added, "Abu Sufyan is a miser. Is it sinful of me to feed our children from his property?" The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "There is no blame on you if you feed them (thereof) in a just and reasonable manner.
Chapter 17: The salaries of rulers and those employed to administer the funds
Chapter 21: If a judge has to witness in favour of a litigant
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said on the Day of (the battle of) Hunain, "Whoever has killed an infidel and has a proof or a witness for it, then the salb (arms and belongings of that deceased) will be for him." I stood up to seek a witness to testify that I had killed an infidel but I could not find any witness and then sat down. Then I thought that I should mention the case to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) I (and when I did so) a man from those who were sitting with him said, "The arms of the killed person he has mentioned, are with me, so please satisfy him on my behalf." Abu Bakr said, "No, he will not give the arms to a bird of Quraish and deprive one of Allah's lions of it who fights for the cause of Allah and His Apostle." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) I stood up and gave it to me, and I bought a garden with its price, and that was my first property which I owned through the war booty. The people of Hijaz said, "A judge should not pass a judgment according to his knowledge, whether he was a witness at the time he was the judge or before that" And if a litigant gives a confession in favor of his opponent in the court, in the opinion of some scholars, the judge should not pass a judgment against him till the latter calls two witnesses to witness his confession. And some people of Iraq said, "A judge can pass a judgement according to what he hears or witnesses (the litigant's confession) in the court itself, but if the confession takes place outside the court, he should not pass the judgment unless two witnesses witness the confession." Some of them said, "A judge can pass a judgement depending on his knowledge of the case as he is trust-worthy, and that a witness is Required just to reveal the truth. The judge's knowledge is more than the witness." Some said, "A judge can judge according to his knowledge only in cases involving property, but in other cases he cannot." Al-Qasim said, "A judge ought not to pass a judgment depending on his knowledge if other people do not know what he knows, although his knowledge is more than the witness of somebody else because he might expose himself to suspicion by the Muslims and cause the Muslims to have unreasonable doubt. "
Chapter 8: The ruler not ruling in an honest manner
I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, "Any man whom Allah has given the authority of ruling some people and he does not look after them in an honest manner, will never feel even the smell of Paradise."
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "If any ruler having the authority to rule Muslim subjects dies while he is deceiving them, Allah will forbid Paradise for him."
Chapter 12: A governor can sentence to death a person without consulting the Imam
that the Prophet (ﷺ) sent him and sent Mu`adh after him (as rulers to Yemen).