Islamic Fiqh > Judgment and testimony > The judge (qadi): qualification, remuneration and independence > The judge's conditions of appointment
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Updated on 24 September 2026 at 12:48 AM
This section is part of the full chapter: All sections of this chapter.
Qadi Abu Bakr al-Jassas (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "The reason required for legal obligation is not enough: the judge must have sound discernment and keen intelligence, far from forgetfulness and error" (Tabsirat al-Hukkam 1/21; see also Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/3, al-Jawhara an-Nira 6/199, ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hashiya of ad-Dusuqi 6/3, al-Mughni 10/92, Sharh az-Zarkashi 3/366, Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/374, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/475).
Imam al-Mawardi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "The second condition, reason: there is consensus on taking it into account. The reason on which legal obligation rests, knowledge of immediate perceptions, does not suffice: he must have sound discernment, keen intelligence, far from forgetfulness and neglect, able through his acumen to clarify what is obscure and settle what is stubbornly difficult" (al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya p. 72; al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/154; an-Najm al-Wahhaj 10/143; Mughni al-Muhtaj 6/287-288).
Third condition: majority. The people of knowledge agree that the judge must be adult, as reported from Abu Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
Seek refuge with Allah from the head of seventy and the command of boys.Ahmad 8302 (good hadith)
The child is under guardianship: he cannot be a guardian over others. He deserves the legal interdiction upon himself, while the judge exercises interdiction over others: the two are incompatible (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/3; al-Jawhara an-Nira 6/199; ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hashiya of ad-Dusuqi 6/3; al-Mughni 10/92; al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya p. 72; al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/154; an-Najm al-Wahhaj 10/143; Mughni al-Muhtaj 6/287-288; Sharh az-Zarkashi 3/366; Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/374; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/475).
Fourth condition: freedom. The jurists of the four schools agree that the judge must be free, and that the judicial office of the slave is not valid, for he is incomplete in governing his own person, all the more so in governing others.
Imam Ibn Rushd (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "As for requiring freedom, there is no disagreement on it" (Bidayat al-Mujtahid 2/344).
Abu al-Walid al-Baji (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "On taking his freedom into account, Qadi Abu Muhammad said: no disagreement among the Muslims. The reason is that the slave's services are due to his master: he cannot divert them to adjudicating between the Muslims; and he bears a deficiency of inviolability whose effect bears on authority, like the woman" (al-Muntaqa sharh al-Muwatta 5/183).
Fifth condition: masculinity. The jurists differed: must the judge be a man, or is a woman's judicial office valid?
The Hanafis hold that masculinity is not a condition for the validity of appointment to judgment in general: the woman belongs, overall, to the people fit for testimony, except that she does not judge in the fixed penalties or in retaliation. A woman's judgment is therefore permitted in everything apart from the penalties and retaliation, in consideration of her testimony: the ruling of judgment is derived from the ruling of testimony, for each of the two belongs to guardianship. Whoever is fit for testimony is fit for judgment: she is fit to testify apart from the penalties and retaliation, so she is fit to judge apart from them.
This appointment remains nonetheless disliked, because of the mingling with men it involves, the rule for women being concealment and reserve. Whoever appoints her sins, because of the word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him):
A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never prosper.al-Bukhari 1463
If she judges between two litigants with a judgment conforming to the religion of Allah, it is executed. If she rules on a fixed penalty or a retaliation, and the case is raised before another judge who admits the possibility and executes it, none other may void it.
Imam Ibn al-Humam (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "The discussion concerns the case where she is appointed and the appointer sins, or where two litigants take her as arbiter and she judges conforming to the religion of Allah: is her judgment executed or not? The proof for its nullity does not stand once it conforms to what Allah has sent down, unless a text be established stripping her of capacity, and the Law attests only the deficiency of her reason. Now this does not reach the total removal of her guardianship: is she not fit to be a witness, to supervise endowments, and to be an executor for orphans. That deficiency is relative and ascribed to the kind, so that an individual may differ from it: our companions have explicitly endorsed the saying: 'Man is better than woman,' while some women may be better than some men. It is because of this innate deficiency that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ascribed the absence of success to those who appoint them: the hadith addresses the appointment of deficient women, which is true. But the question is: if she is appointed and judges by the truth, why should that truth be voided?" (Sharh Fath al-Qadir 7/298; see Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/3, al-Hidaya 3/107, al-Ikhtiyar 2/100, al-Jawhara an-Nira 6/209, al-Lubab 2/485, Majma' al-Anhar 3/234, Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 5/441).
The majority of the jurists, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, hold that entrusting judgment to a woman is not permitted. Their proofs:
The word of Allah: "Men are maintainers of women by what Allah has preferred of some over others" (an-Nisa 4:23), that is, in reason and opinion: it is therefore not permitted that they stand in authority over men.
The word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never prosper." The opposite of prosperity being corruption, the hadith implies that if she is charged with judgment, the affair of those she governs is corrupted.
Judgment is a guardianship of decisive sentencing: femaleness contradicts it, as it contradicts the great imamate.
Whoever may not act as judge in the penalties may not act as judge outside the penalties either.
The judge attends the assemblies of litigants and men, and the office requires complete opinion, full reason and acumen. Now the woman is deficient in reason, poor in opinion, unfit to sit in the assemblies of men; her testimony is not received, even with a thousand women like her, so long as no man is with them; Allah has pointed to their straying and forgetting by His word: "Lest one of them should err, the other may remind her" (al-Baqara 2:282). She is fit neither for the great imamate nor for governing lands: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), none of his caliphs, and none of those after them ever entrusted a woman with judgment or the government of a city, to our knowledge; were it permitted, it would not be absent from nearly all times.
The female deficiency prevents her from leading men in prayer, even though prayer behind a sinful man is permitted: preventing her from judgment, which the sinful man cannot exercise, is therefore yet more indicated, for the state of judgment is weightier than that of leading prayer. If the woman may not be imam of men, she may not be judge all the more.
The female deficiency prevents the validity of guardianships, like the imamate of the nation (al-Ishraf 'ala naka'it masail al-khilaf 5/18 and 20; at-Taj wa-l-Iklil 5/52; Mawahib al-Jalil 8/52; Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/53; ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hashiya of ad-Dusuqi 6/3; al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/156; al-Bayan 13/20-21; an-Najm al-Wahhaj 10/144; Mughni al-Muhtaj 6/288; al-Mughni 10/92; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/475; Manar as-Sabil 3/454).
Ibn al-Qasim, among the Malikis, as Ibn Abi Maryam relates from him, together with al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn Hazm and Ibn Jarir at-Tabari, hold that a woman's judicial office is permitted without restriction, in the penalties as elsewhere; it is also said that Ibn al-Qasim's view matches Abu Hanifa's: permitted outside the penalties. Their proof is the analogy of judgment upon the fatwa: just as a woman may issue fatwas, she may judge (Mawahib al-Jalil 8/52; Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/53; al-Mughni 10/92).
Al-Mawardi said: "At-Tabari departed from the norm by permitting her judgment in all sentences; no regard is paid to a view rejected by consensus" (al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya p. 110).
The sheets report the end of a discussion on the execution of judgments: "Gathering these conditions is impossible in our era, which lacks an absolute mujtahid; the sound course is to execute the judgment of whoever was appointed by a ruler holding force (dhu shawka), even if ignorant or sinful, lest the people's interests be paralyzed." Ibn as-Salah said in Mushkil al-Wasit: "What he mentions is supported by the community's consensus on executing the judgments of the oppressive caliphs and of those they appointed; it is objected, however, that if the ruler appoints a disbelieving judge, his judgments are not executed despite the necessity."
Ibn Yunus said in his Sharh al-Wajiz: "The apparent view is that Islam is a condition for the holder of force. It has appeared in some lands that force belongs to the disbelievers: if the disbelieving holder of force appoints a Muslim as judge, is the appointment valid or not? The apparent view remains that there is no way to suspend the judgments." Ibn Abd as-Salam said: "The apparent view is its execution" (Fatawa ar-Ramli 1/595).
Sixth condition: uprightness. The jurists differed: is it a condition of validity, so that appointing a sinful person is void, or only a condition of completeness, his appointment being valid and his judgment executed if he does not overstep the limits of the Law?
The majority of the jurists, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, require the judge's uprightness. It consists in being truthful in speech, manifestly trustworthy, chaste regarding prohibitions, guarding against sin, distant from doubtful matters, trustworthy in contentment as in anger, practicing in his religion and worldly life the moral dignity of his likes. If these qualities are complete, that is the uprightness by which his testimony is admissible and his office valid; if one trait is compromised, he is barred from testimony and guardianship: his word is not heard and his judgment is not executed.
Therefore appointing a sinful person is not permitted; and if he is appointed upright then becomes sinful, his office is void. Proofs: "O you who believe, if a sinful man brings you news, verify it" (al-Hujurat 49:6): Allah prevented accepting his word, all the more its execution. Allah made uprightness a condition for testimony: all the more for judgment. Allah required it in the least of judgments: "Let two just men among you judge by it." Judgment includes the guardianship of marriage, managing the wealth of the foolish, of orphans and of endowments: sin contradicts these guardianships, so judgment is not valid with it (at-Taj wa-l-Iklil 5/52; al-Mukhtasar al-Fiqhi 13/246-247; Mawahib al-Jalil 8/52; Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/53; ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hashiya of ad-Dusuqi 6/3; al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/158-159; al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya p. 73; al-Bayan 13/20; an-Najm al-Wahhaj 10/144; Mughni al-Muhtaj 6/288; al-Mughni 10/93; Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/374; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/457; Manar as-Sabil 3/454).
They then differed: is his judgment executed if it conforms to the truth? Qadi Iyad said: "On the sinful judge there is disagreement among our companions: is what he judged annulled even if it conforms to the truth, which is the sound view, or does it stand if it conforms to the truth and to the basis of judgment?" (Tabsirat al-Hukkam 1/21). Imam al-Qarafi (may Allah have mercy on him) reverses that saying: "The sound view is the execution of the sinful judge's judgment if it conforms to the truth; one view says: annulled" (adh-Dhakhira 10/19). The Shafi'i position, per al-Mawardi and others, is that his judgment is not executed and his appointment invalid (al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/158-159; al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyya p. 73).
Imam an-Nawawi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "He said in al-Wasit: however, gathering these conditions is impossible in our era, which lacks an absolute mujtahid; the sound course is to execute the judgment of whoever was appointed by a ruler holding force, even if ignorant or sinful, lest the people's interests be paralyzed. Supporting it: we execute the judgment of the rebels' judge out of that necessity. And this is good" (Rawdat at-Talibin 7/236).
The Hanafis hold that uprightness is not a condition for the validity of appointment to judgment, but a condition of completeness. The early generations admitted the rule of commanders who seized power while unjust: were it invalid, they would not have done so. Appointing a sinful person is therefore permitted, and his judgments are executed as long as he does not overstep the Law's limit: he belongs to the people of testimony, hence to the people of judgment.
Yet the sinful person should not be appointed, and whoever appoints him sins: judgment is an immense trust, the trust of wealth, of honor and of lives; none discharges it but him whose scrupulousness and Godfearingness are complete. But if he is appointed, the appointment is valid in itself and he becomes judge: the defect lies in a cause outside him, which does not prevent the validity of his appointment.
If he is appointed upright then becomes sinful, he deserves dismissal but is not thereby dismissed, per most of the shaykhs; the ruler is bound to dismiss him; and if the ruler stipulated his automatic dismissal upon sin, he is dismissed (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/3; al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya 3/307; ad-Durr al-Mukhtar 5/356).
It is said in ad-Durr al-Mukhtar: "The sinful person is fit for the office, hence fit for it, but he is not to be appointed, obligatorily; and the appointer sins, like the one accepting his testimony, upon which the fatwa is given." The commentators restrict this to when his truthfulness is presumed, except the sinful person of standing and moral dignity whose testimony must be accepted (al-Bazzaziyya), and conclude that the appointer then does not sin by appointing him, unless one distinguishes between the two cases (an-Nahr). Imam Ibn Abidin (may Allah have mercy on him) clarifies: "His statement: the sinful person is fit for the office: by this phrase the author repels the suspicion of whoever would say that the sinful person is not fit for judgment and that his judgment is void because he is not trusted on account of his sin, which is the view of the Three, chosen by at-Tahawi" (Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 5/355-356).
The continuation of the hashiya relates: al-'Ayni: "The fatwa should be given accordingly, especially in this era." Then: "I say: were this required, the door of judgment would close, especially in our time; hence the course followed by the author is the soundest, as in al-Khulasa, and it is the soundest of views, as in al-'Imadiyya and an-Nahr." In al-Fath: "The sound course is to execute the judgment of whoever was appointed by a ruler holding force, even if ignorant and sinful: this is the apparent position of our school; he then judges by the fatwa of another." On his statement "but he is not to be appointed, obligatorily," al-Bahr notes: "in more than one place he mentioned preference: it is preferable that his testimony not be accepted; if it is accepted, it remains permitted," and al-Fath: "what the proof requires is that it be unlawful for him to judge by it; if he judged, it is permitted and executed," which implies sin (Hashiyat Ibn Abidin 'ala ad-Durr al-Mukhtar 5/355-356).
Seventh condition: to be a mujtahid, learned in the legal rulings. The jurists differed: must the judge be a mujtahid knowing the lawful, the unlawful and the rest of the rulings, or may a non-scholar be appointed?
The Hanafis: the judge need not be of the people of ijtihad, but it is recommended. When a new case occurs, it must be sought in the Book, then in the Sunna, then in the consensus; if not found there, opinion and effort are employed. He knows the Sunna and the hadiths, their abrogating and abrogated, their general and their specific, and what the Muslims have agreed upon.
Ijtihad is a condition of preference, not of validity. It is related from Ali (may Allah be pleased with him): the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sent me to Yemen as judge. I said: O Messenger of Allah, you send me while I am young and have no knowledge of judging. He said:
Allah will guide your heart and firm your tongue. When the two litigants sit before you, do not judge until you have heard from the second as you heard from the first: that is the way most likely to make the judgment clear to you.Ahmad 636; Abu Dawud 3584; Ibn Hibban 5065 (good hadith)
Ali said: "I remained judge, never doubting a judgment afterwards." The aim is judgment itself: delivering the right to its holder, which is achieved by referring to the fatwa of other scholars.
Yet the ignorant should not be appointed: the ignorant, left to himself, corrupts more than he mends, and unknowingly judges by falsehood. But if he is appointed, the appointment is valid: he can judge by the truth through others' knowledge, by consulting the jurists; his appointment is permitted in itself, vitiated by an external cause, and what is vitiated by an external cause takes effect like the valid one: his judgments are executed as long as he does not overstep the Law's limit therein; it is like the void sale, which equals the valid sale in its effects (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/3; al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya 3/307).
The majority of the jurists, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, require the judge to be of the people of ijtihad, learned in the Book, the Sunna, the consensus, the disagreement, the analogy and the tongue of the Arabs. Their proofs:
The word of Allah: "Say: are those who know equal to those who do not know?" (az-Zumar 39:9). The verse forbids equality: it applies to judgment as to the rest; and it is said by way of reproach, which makes it a command.
"Judge between them by what Allah has sent down" (al-Ma'ida 5:49): imitation is not part of what Allah has sent down.
"Judge between people in truth" (Sad 38:26): the imitator does not know, by his imitation, truth from falsehood.
"That you may judge between people by what Allah has shown you" (an-Nisa 4:105), which entails ijtihad.
"If you dispute over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger" (an-Nisa 4:59).
From Burayda (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
The judges are three: two judges in Hell and one in Paradise. A man who judged by other than the truth while knowing it: that one is in Hell; a judge who does not know and destroyed the people's rights: he is in Hell; and a judge who judged by the truth: that one is in Paradise.Abu Dawud 3573; at-Tirmidhi 1322; Ibn Majah 2315 (authentic hadith)
Now the layman judges in ignorance. And from 'Amr ibn al-'As: he heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) say:
When the judge judges, strives and is right, he has two rewards; and when he judges, strives and errs, he has one reward.al-Bukhari 6919; Muslim 1716
All this requires the judge to be of the people of ijtihad. Imitation is not a path to knowledge: it is permitted to the layman only by necessity, and no necessity obliges the judge to imitate another. Judgment is weightier than the fatwa: the mufti does not bind the questioner; if the mufti may not be a layman, neither may the judge, all the more. If one says: the mufti may report what he heard; we answer: yes, but he is then not a mufti, he is a reporter: he reports from a specific mujtahid, and it is his report that counts, not his fatwa, unlike judgment (al-Ishraf 'ala naka'it masail al-khilaf 5/7 and 15; at-Taj wa-l-Iklil 5/52; al-Mukhtasar al-Fiqhi 13/246-247; Mawahib al-Jalil 8/52; Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/53; ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hashiya of ad-Dusuqi 6/3; al-Hawi al-Kabir 16/160; al-Bayan 13/19-20; Rawdat at-Talibin 7/233-234; an-Najm al-Wahhaj 10/146; Mughni al-Muhtaj 6/289; al-Mughni 10/93; Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/374; Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/476; Manar as-Sabil 3/455).
Al-Qarafi said: "The judge, if a mujtahid, may judge and give fatwa only by what is preponderant in his view. If an imitator, he may judge by the well-known view of his school and give fatwa by it, even if he does not hold it preponderant himself, in this imitating his imam, whom he imitates in the fatwa, as to the preponderance of the view he judges by. As for following desire in judgment and fatwa: forbidden by consensus."
Ibn Shas said: "The appointment of an imitator is not valid where a scholar exists; if he takes the office, he is unjust and transgressing: he sat in another's seat and wore another's cloak without entitlement." Ibn Abd as-Salam said: "In our time none of the imitators should be appointed who lacks the capacity to weigh between views, for that is not nonexistent though scarce; as for the rank of ijtihad, it is absent in the Maghreb."
Al-Maziri (died 536 AH, may Allah have mercy on him) said: "The past scholars discussed the requirement that the judge scrutinize these questions in an era when knowledge was abundant and widespread, and most of its people busied themselves with derivation and debate over the schools. Our era: in the vast, great region there is no scrutinizing mufti who has gathered the tools of ijtihad, mastered the foundations of law, knowledge of the tongue, the sunnas, the awareness of the Quranic rulings, the capacity to interpret what requires interpretation, to set conflicting texts against one another, to weigh one apparent sense against another, to know the analogies with their limits, their kinds and their ways of extraction, and to weigh causes and analogies against one another: our time is devoid of this in all the regions of the Maghreb, let alone a judge combining these qualities! Forbidding the office to the imitator in this era would suspend judgments and plunge into chaos, sedition and discord: the Law opens no way to that. But the states of imitators differ: the holders of power sometimes appoint a layman needing nothing from people, bearing the name of uprightness and the garb of gravity, but who has neither training, nor the company of scholars, nor the learning that would draw him from silliness and ignorance and raise him to the rank of one who understands what the litigants say before him: such a one is neither to be appointed judge nor entrusted with it."
Ibn Rashid relates from some that they permitted appointing the ignorant, holding knowledge recommended, not a condition of validity nor a cause of dismissal: a deviant view, far from the correct, and the judge of all men is the most in need of knowledge. Ibn Rashid said: "Let it not be said that he consults the people of knowledge and judges by what they agree upon: we say he is commanded to consult even as a jurist; if they differ among themselves, he strives over their difference and aims at the best of their views; if he is ignorant, the matter confuses him and he does not know what to take. It happens that an ignorant man is appointed over a city with no jurists: he then judges by his desire, as is prevalent in our lands and our time: knowledge has gone, ignorance has multiplied, the ignorant have been promoted and the scholars cast aside: we belong to Allah and to Him we return" (Tabsirat al-Hukkam 1/21).
Imam Ibn Hubayra (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "They agreed that whoever is not of the people of ijtihad may not take the office of judgment, except Abu Hanifa, who said: it is permitted. At the death of the imam or his deputy, his appointment lapses per the well-known view."
The passage of al-Ifsah continues: "I say: the sound view in this question is that those who forbade appointing a judge until he is of the people of ijtihad intended the situation before the settling of the four schools upon which the community agreed, each being lawful to act upon, for it rests on the command of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and on his Sunna. The judge of this time, though not of the people of ijtihad, though he has not sought the hadith nor mastered its ways, and of the tongue of the Lawgiver has only what he needs: others have completed that work before him and labored at it; the matter has come down from those mujtahid imams to what I see as its answer after them; the truth is confined within their views, the sciences have been codified and have reached the point where the truth is clear. The judge therefore rules in his judgments by what he takes from them or from one of them: he is like one whose ijtihad led him to a view. If, in the zones of disagreement, he aims at the most precise places as far as he can, he grasps certainty and acts by the stronger. Likewise if he aims at what the majority of them follow, acting by the word of the greater number rather than the single one: he grasps certainty, the fairest and the strongest. It remains lawful for him to act by the view of a single one, but I disapprove for him that it be because he studied the school of one of them, or grew up in a city where only one school is known, or his shaykh or teacher follows the school of one particular jurist, to the point of confining himself to that school. Thus, if two litigants appear before him and their dispute concerns a matter where the three jurists admit delegation without the opponent's consent, and the judge is a Hanafi knowing that Malik, Ahmad and ash-Shafi'i admit this delegation while Abu Hanifa forbids it: if he turns from what those three agreed upon to Abu Hanifa's view, on the mere ground that a jurist in general said it, with no proof established for him nor tools of ijtihad, even though Abu Hanifa's word is weightier: I fear for such a one the blame of Allah, for he followed his desire in that, and that he not be of those who listen to the word and follow the best of it. Likewise a Maliki judge asked about the residual moisture of the dog while knowing that all the jurists ruled it impure, yet turning aside to his school. Likewise a Shafi'i judge seized with a dispute over the deliberate omission of the name of Allah before slaughter: one says: this one prevented me from selling a lawfully slaughtered animal and spoiled it for me; the other says: I only prevented him from selling carrion; and he rules by his school while knowing that the three jurists hold otherwise. Likewise a Hanbali judge: one says: I owe a sum; the other says: he had a right upon me and I paid him; and he rules for acquittal on the basis of the acknowledgment, knowing that the three jurists hold otherwise. This case and its like: following the greater number is, in my view, nearest to deliverance and weightiest in practice. It follows that the offices of judgment in our time are valid appointments, and their holders seal one of the frontier posts of Islam, in the manner of communal obligations. We have neglected this view and not mentioned it, walking the path of feigned neglect walked by certain jurists, each of whom is mentioned in the book of Abu Hanifa or his speech. And if one says that it is invalid to be a judge in principle until one is of the people of ijtihad, then enumerates conditions of ijtihad absent in rulers, such as primary formation and transmission: this would suspend judgments, close the door of judgment, no right executed and no proof established, among the other legal rules: this is not sound; and it is established that the sound view is that the judgments of today's rulers are valid and executed, and their appointments lawful in the Law" (al-Ifsah 2/395 and 399; Jawahir al-'Uqud 2/289).
The discussion closes in at-Turuq al-hukmiyya (p. 289 and 292): when some Companions saw the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) with his wife Safiyya bint Huyay, he said to them: "Go slowly: she is Safiyya bint Huyay," lest suspicion settle in their hearts. And: whoever ponders the Law and what it contains of interests and of the blocking of pretexts sees the correct view appear in this question, and from Allah is the success.