it shall not be overturned based on mere possibility. If a third person comes and claims it, and produces evidence for it, then his evidence and Zayd’s evidence conflict. Zayd does not need to produce his evidence again because it has already testified once, and they are both equal in the testimony at the time of the dispute, so he does not need to repeat it, just like evidence if it testified, and the judgment was suspended pending the investigation into its status, then its integrity (adala) was revealed; it is accepted and a ruling is made based on it without repeating its testimony. Such is the case here.

Section: If a man is in possession of a sheep, and a man claims it was his for a year, and produces evidence for that, and the one in whose possession it is claims that it has been in his possession for two years, and produces evidence for that, it belongs to the claimant (the outsider), without any disagreement; because his evidence testifies for him regarding ownership, and the evidence of the insider testifies regarding possession only. Thus, there is no conflict between them, because it is possible to reconcile them by assuming that the possession was without ownership, so the evidence of ownership takes precedence. If the evidence testifies that it was his property for two years, then two forms of precedence have conflicted: the earliness of the date from the side of the insider's evidence, and the other being the evidence of the outsider. There are two narrations regarding this; one of them is that the evidence of the outsider is given precedence. This is the opinion of Abu Yusuf, Muhammad, and Abu Thawr. The general implication of al-Khiraqi’s words necessitates this, due to the saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him): "The burden of proof is on the claimant," and because it is possible that the basis for the insider's evidence is merely possession, so it does not yield more than what possession yields, thus it resembles the case that preceded it. The second is that the evidence of the insider is given precedence. This is the opinion of Abu Hanifa and al-Shafi'i; because it contains an addition. If it were the opposite, such that the insider’s evidence testified that he has owned it for one year, and the outsider’s evidence testified that he has owned it for two years, the outsider’s evidence is given precedence, except according to the narration in which the insider’s evidence is given precedence, in which case two opinions are derived based on the two narrations regarding the case before it. The manifest school of al-Shafi'i is the precedence of the insider's evidence in all circumstances. Some of them said: There are two opinions regarding it. If the outsider claims it was his property for a year, and the insider claims he bought it from him two years ago, and each of them produces evidence, the insider's evidence is given precedence. The Qadi mentioned this, and it is the opinion of Abu Thawr. If the dates of the two pieces of evidence coincide, except that the evidence of the insider...