Said b. al-Musayyib told that a Muslim and a Jew brought a dispute before ‘Umar, and as he considered the Jew was in the right he pronounced judgment in his favour; but when the Jew said, “I swear by God that you have pronounced just judgment,” he struck him with the whip and asked him what caused him to know that. The Jew replied, “I swear by God that we find in the Torah that no qadi judges rightly without having an angel at his right hand and an angel at his left who direct him and dispose him to what is right as long as he adheres to the right; but when he abandons the right they ascend and leave him.”
'Abdallah b. Abu Aufa reported God’s Messenger as saying, “God is with the qadi as long as he is not tyrannical, but when he is He departs from him and the devil attaches himself to him.” A version has, “When he is tyrannical He leaves him to his own devices.”
Ibn Mauhib told that when ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan asked Ibn ‘Umar to act as qadi among the people he asked the commander of the faithful to excuse him. He asked him what objection he had to that when his father had been holding such an office, and he replied that it was because he had heard God’s Messenger say, “If anyone is a qadi and fulfils the office with justice he should rather turn away from it with neither credit nor blame.”* After that he did not ask him again.
Tirmidhi transmitted it.
* Or, ‘without reward or punishment’.
Razin’s version on the authority of Nafi' tells that Ibn ‘Umar said to ‘Uthman, “Commander of the faithful, I shall not pronounce judgment between two men.” He replied, “Your father used to do so.” He said, “If anything was dubious to my father he asked God’s Messenger, and if anything was dubious to God’s Messenger he asked Gabriel, but I can find no one to ask, and I heard God’s Messenger say, ‘He who seeks refuge in God has sought refuge in a great One.’ I also heard him say, ‘Grant refuge to him who seeks refuge in God’, and I seek refuge in God from your making me a qadi." So he excused him, but said, “Do not tell anyone.”
‘A’isha reported God's Messenger as saying, “The day of resurrection will come to the just qadi and he will wish he had never given judgment between two men about a single date.”*
Ahmad transmitted it.
* He will wish he had never given judgment even about the most insignificant matters.
