Iqrar (confession or acknowledgement of a right)

Iqrar means acknowledgement or confession. In the majority's technical usage it is the report that a right belongs to another person, given against the one who reports it. Some Hanafis held that it is a creative act (inshaa'); others held that it is a report in one respect and a creative act in another. ¹

Iqrar, claim (da'wa) and testimony (shahada) are all reports. A report about a right that existed before the speaker, whose ruling stays with him, is an iqrar. If the ruling goes beyond him, and the speaker has no interest in it, it is testimony; if he has an interest, it is a claim. ² An iqrar may be made about an unspecified thing, but the speaker must specify it; a claim about an unspecified defendant is not valid. ²

The default ruling for an acknowledgement of a right of people is that it is obligatory, as in an acknowledgement of an established lineage so that lineages are not lost. ² Its authority rests on the Qur'an, the Sunna, consensus and reason. In the Sunna, the Prophet ﷺ ordered the stoning of Ma'iz and of the Ghamidiyya on their own confession, and money is a fortiori. ^{2 3} The community agreed that an iqrar binds only the one who makes it. ³

The effect of an iqrar is to show what was acknowledged, that is, to establish the right in the past; it does not create a right from the start. ³ The iqrar is itself sufficient proof and needs no judgment; it is the strongest form of proof, and it is preferred to evidence from witnesses. ³ Its force, however, is limited to the one who makes it, so no one may be punished on another person's confession. ⁴

• Sanity: the confession of a child who cannot discern, a madman, an imbecile, a sleeper or an unconscious person is not valid. ^{5 13}
• An imbecile's confession is valid for money only if he has been licensed to trade. ⁵
• A drunkard: the jurists differ. The Hanafis accept his confession for all rights except pure hadd penalties, if he became drunk by a forbidden means; the Malikis do not hold him to it; the majority of Shafi'is do. ¹³
• A spendthrift under interdiction cannot confess to money; before any interdiction is pronounced, a confession may be valid in one view. ¹³
• Puberty is not required for validity according to the majority, so a licensed minor's confession is valid for debts and goods within his licence; al-Shafi'i disagreed. ^{13 14}
• The confessor must understand what he says, must choose freely, and must not be under suspicion. ^{14 6}
• Suspicion: a debtor under a bankruptcy order is suspected in what he confesses about the property he is restrained from; a person near death is suspected in some cases, so that a confession to a non-heir is valid from the estate up to the limits the jurists set, and a confession to an heir is void unless the other heirs confirm it. ^{6 15 16}

The recipient must be identifiable. An unspecified recipient invalidates the confession; a small, limited uncertainty among a known group may be accepted in one view. ^{7 17} A confession to an unborn child is valid if the child's existence is certain at the time, and a confession to a mosque or endowment is valid. ^{17 18} A confession in favour of an animal or a house is not valid unless a cause is stated that can be attributed to its owner, which most scholars accept. ^{17 18 19}

The thing must have value. An acknowledgement of an unknown thing is valid, and the confessor is required to specify it. ^{8 20} Where the confessor says he owes "money" without specifying it, the Hanafis do not credit anything below one dirham; the majority accept any amount. ^{8 20}

The form is any clear indication of intention, spoken, written or by gesture; private intention alone is not enough. ²¹ An explicit form is "I owe him a thousand dirhams"; an indirect form is "Yes" in answer to "Do I owe you a thousand?" or "I have paid it" for a debt. ^{21 9} An exception joined to the confession is valid for a part: excepting a smaller part is allowed, excepting most of it is disputed, and excepting the whole is void. ^{22 23} A confession made conditional on a will is treated differently: the Hanafis hold that the condition prevents validity. Al-Shafi'i holds that it does not bind in either case. The Malikis (except Ibn al-Mawwaz and Ibn Abd al-Hakam) and the Hanbalis hold it binding when the condition is God's will, and the Hanbalis treat a condition on a person's will as invalid. ^{9 10}

Retraction may be explicit or implied, such as fleeing when a penalty is carried out. ¹¹ For rights of God that fall away under doubt, such as zina, theft and drinking wine, the majority accept a retraction and the penalty is dropped. ^{11 12} For rights of people, such as retaliation and the false accusation penalty, and for financial rights, a retraction is not accepted without the consent of the recipient, because a right of a person, once established, cannot be dropped without his consent. ¹²

If one heir acknowledges a third sharer, the lineage is not established as against the others, but the acknowledged person takes the share the acknowledging heir has, in the view of most scholars. ²⁴ If all heirs acknowledge a person's lineage, it is established. ²⁴ The conditions include that the person's lineage is unknown, that no one disputes it, and that the claim is possible. ²⁵ A woman may acknowledge her parents and her husband; the Hanafis do not accept a wife's acknowledgement of a child without her husband's confirmation or evidence. ^{26 27}