Sulh (amicable settlement)

The ruling of sulh

Sulh is the amiable settlement that ends a dispute over wealth or rights. It is lawful by consensus (al-Mawardi, Ibn Qudamah, Ibn Rushd, al-Imrani), recommended in itself; it may become obligatory when it preserves a necessary interest, and forbidden when it entails an unavoidable corruption. The judge urges both parties toward sulh while the truth is unclear to him: Umar wrote to Abu Musa: "press for settlement so long as the judgment has not become clear to you"; once the right is established, judgment applies.

O Ka'b, drop half. He said: I have done so, Messenger of Allah. He said: rise and collect the rest.al-Bukhari 2563, Muslim 1558

The types

• Sulh with acknowledgment (iqrar): the defendant admits the right and settles; the rules of sale apply when it has consideration (rescission, defect, options for the Hanafis); the Malikis rank it as sale, hire or gift; the Shafi'is hold it exchange or remission.
• Sulh with denial and with silence: valid for the majority (Hanafis, Malikis, Hanbalis), the silent party being possibly an acknowledger or a denier; invalid for the Shafi'is, since paying under silence approaches bribery.

What sulh bears on

It is valid on bodily injury compensation, on housing and on the defect of a sold good, and on everything against which a compensation may be taken; in intentional killing, the verse frames the compensation consented by the next of kin (Quran 2:178).

Forbidden settlements

• The hudud of Allah: "Every settlement over an unjust term is revocable" (al-Bukhari 2695, Muslim 1697); the Shafi'is state it plainly: no paid settlement wards off a penalty, the penalty being a right of Allah.
• Dropping part of a deferred debt against partial immediate payment ("reduce it and hasten"): invalid for the four schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali madhhab): it sells the term against the dropped amount, the mirror image of increasing the debt for a delay. Malik reports in the Muwatta that Zayd ibn Thabit said of such a scheme: "I neither order you to take it nor to commission it"; an-Nawawi rules that a thousand deferred settled at five hundred now is void. Dropping part of a due debt, with no acceleration condition, is valid (hadith of Ka'b).

Practical note

A sound sulh keeps two safeguards: no right of Allah is traded in it, and no term of a debt is sold in it. Beyond these two limits, renouncing part of one's right in kindness remains a recommended path.