Non-Muslims competence in giving testimony : a study between Islamic jurisprudence and the Saudi Civil procedural Law

Abstract EN

Non-Muslims competence in giving testimony; A study between Islamic jurisprudence and the Saudi Civil procedural Law.

Abdulrahman Hassan Al-AnbariLaw Department, Saudi Electronic University, Saudi Arabia.

E-mail: usa.

law@hotmail.

coma.

alanbari@seu.

edu.

sa: The world became a connected society because of the influence of recent communication technologies.

The idea is that you can communicate without affecting other people, yet you cannot affect without communicating.

In these interconnected cultures, commercial transactions flow beardless regardless of the traders' identity, whether they are Muslim or not.

In this respect, it is essential to have an adequate legal system to secure those transactions.

[1]Well-enacted evidence law in any country is vital to ensure an adequate legal system to secure those transactions.

In Islam, evidence law includes several forms of admissible proof to confirm or disapprove of disputes, such as circumstantial, empirical, and psychological evidence.

In the Arabic language, the word evidence is a synonym to the word al-Bayyinah, " which translated as any form of proof that could show the right.

[2] Evidence in Islamic law contains, but is not limited to, testimony, confession, oath, written record, presumption, preview, and knowledge of the judge.

Testimony considers as essential and dominant in Islam and Islamic courts, as well as the primary form of proof in Islamic jurisprudence, to preserve harmony and provide justice in Islamic communities.

Islamic jurisprudence has some mandatory criteria and standards to allow individual testimony against others.

The prerequisite for a person to be a just Muslim is one of those criteria that discloses a factual debate on the competency of a Non-Muslim to provide testimony before the Sharia court against a Muslim.

The general theory is that most Muslims are qualified to testify before others, whether they are Muslims or Non-Muslims, and this theory has an extensive consensus among Islamic jurists.

Most Muslim' scholars agreed that it is an obligatory duty upon a judge to accept the testimony of a just person and rule on dispute based on this testimony.

[3] Even in the Mecelle, a civil code of the Ottoman Empire, article 1828 obligated all judges in Islamic courts to accept a just person's testimony.

[4] However, the competence of Non-Muslims to testify against others in Islamic courts, particularly their credibility in giving testimony against Muslims due to disparities in faith, is a disputable issue not only under Islamic jurisprudence but also in the Saudi Civil procedural law and its judicial application.

A solution to this issue can be attracted through understanding the difference in Islamic jurisprudence opinions and employ them in the Saudi legal system.