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DEFENDANT. Arabic muddaʿa ʿalaihi (مدعى عليه‎). Lit. “A claim upon him.”

The author of the Hidāyah (vol. iii. p. 63) says a defendant is a person who, if he should wish to avoid the litigation, is compellable to sustain it. Some have defined a plaintiff, with respect to any article of property, to be a person who, from his being disseized of the said article, has no right to it but by the establishment of proof; and a defendant to be a person who has a plea of right to that article from his seizing or possession of it.

The Imām Muḥammad has said that a defendant is a person who denies. This is correct; but it requires a skill and knowledge of jurisprudence to distinguish the denier in a suit, as the reality and not the appearance is efficient, and it frequently happens that a person is in appearance the plaintiff, whilst in reality he is the defendant. Thus a trustee, when he says to the owner of the deposit, “I have restored to you your deposit,” appears to be plaintiff, inasmuch as he pleads the return of the deposit; yet in reality he is the defendant, since he denies the obligation of responsibility, and hence his assertion, corroborated by an oath, must be credited.