to pay it, and he compels him to do so. If he says, "I am not the person named in this letter," his statement is accepted along with his oath, unless the plaintiff establishes evidence that he is indeed the person named in the letter. If he acknowledges that the name is his name, the lineage is his lineage, and the description is his description, but that the right is not upon him, but rather upon another who shares his name, lineage, and description, then the statement of the plaintiff is accepted in refuting that, because the apparent reality is the absence of any such participation in all these aspects. If the defendant produces evidence regarding what he claimed concerning the existence of a partner who shares all these aspects with him, the judge shall summon him and question him about the right. If he confesses to it, he compels him to pay it, and the first person is absolved. If he denies it, he stays the judgment and writes to the judge who wrote the letter, informing him of the situation and the difficulty that has occurred, until he brings the two witnesses so that they may testify before him as to what distinguishes the person testified against from the other. If the person named claims that there was someone in the city who shared his name and description, and that he has died, we shall examine the matter: if his death occurred before the occurrence of the transaction upon which the judgment was based, or if he was someone who was not a contemporary of the one judged against or the one in whose favor judgment was made, no difficulty arises, and his existence is as if he were non-existent. But if his death occurred after the judgment or after the transaction, and he was someone for whom it was possible for a transaction to have taken place between him and the one in whose favor judgment was made, then the difficulty has occurred, just as it would be if he were still alive, because it is possible that the right lies with the one who died.

Section: When a judge writes concerning the establishment of evidence or a confession of a debt, it is permissible, and the addressee passes judgment based on it and seizes the one judged against for it. If that is a specific object, such as delimited real estate or a specific entity witnessed to, which cannot be confused with anything else—such as a well-known, famous slave or an animal of that sort—the addressee also passes judgment based on it, and it is mandatory to surrender it to the one in whose favor the judgment was made. If it is a specific object that is not distinguished except by description, such as an unknown slave or other items that are not distinguished except by description, there are two views. The first is that he does not accept his letter. This is the opinion of Abu Hanifah and is one of the two views of the Shafi'i scholars; this is because description is insufficient, as evidenced by the fact that it is not valid to testify for a man using only description and identification, and the object testified about is the same.