Islamic Fiqh > Financial transactions > Sulh (amicable settlement)
Amicable settlement: its 3 types (with acknowledgment, with denial, with silence), its status, conditions and effects.
Sulh is the amiable settlement that ends a dispute over wealth or rights; lawful by consensus and recommended, the judge urges both parties toward it while the truth is unclear to him. It takes 3 forms: with acknowledgment (iqrar), with denial, with silence, the latter being invalid for the Shafi'is. Two safeguards protect it: the hudud of Allah are never traded in it ("every unjust settlement is rejected", at-Tirmidhi 1352, Abu Dawud 3594), and dropping part of a deferred debt against partial immediate payment is invalid for the 4 schools; renouncing part of a due debt is valid, as in the hadith of Ka'b (al-Bukhari 2563, Muslim 1558).
Updated on 07 October 2026 at 6:42 PM
Sulh (amic settlement): its rules and application to trade disputes between buyer and seller.
Bada'i al-Sana'i by al-Kasani · Hanafi school
because the sulh (settlement) upon one hundred against the teeth of the diya is the acquisition of the right in substance; and if the judge determined what is due and judged against him in dirhams, then the liable one settled for two thousand dinars, that is permitted, and taking possession in the session is necessary, as if the killer did so of himself, for it is sarf (money exchange): its conditions are therefore observed, and Allah, the Most High, knows best.
Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudama · Hanbali school
Here he was not prevented from acquitting it, but he acknowledged it and settled with him against it, while giving it to him: it thus resembles the case where he had not denied it.
Question 818; he said: "Whoever acknowledges a right, then settles upon part of it: that is not a sulh, for it is an amputation of the right".