بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Chapter: Comprehensive Clarification of What Is Required of the Inquirer Regarding the Disagreement of the Scholars
The jurists differed regarding this matter into two positions:
1) One of them: that the disagreement of the scholars — among the Companions and those who came after them from the imāms, may Allāh’s mercy upon them be vast — [dictates that] it is permissible for someone who examines the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) to adopt the statement of whomever he wishes among them; likewise the person who examines the statements of others besides them among the imāms, so long as he does not know it to be an error. When it becomes clear to him that it is an error — due to its contradicting a text of the Book, a text of the Sunnah, or the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the scholars — it is not open [i.e. permissible] for him to follow it. If it is not clear to him from these aspects, it is permissible for him to make use of that statement, even without knowing its correctness from its error — and he becomes in the status of the common people, who are permitted to follow a scholar in taqlīd when they ask him about something, even without knowing its basis.
This is a position whose meaning is narrated from ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and al-Qāsim ibn Muhammad, and from Sufyān al-Thawrī — if authentically established from him [note: as al-Hāfidh has indicated, it’s not authentic from Sufyān al-Thawrī due to the isnād containing Muhammad b. Yazīd who is weak. He was declared weak by Al-Bukhārī, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Numayr and Abū Hātim al-Rāzī. ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah called him a liar. Al-Bukhārī said: I saw them united upon his weakness. See al-Tahrīr pg. 725] — and a group held it.
Among their proofs for that is his (ﷺ) saying:
أَصْحَابِي كَالنُّجُومِ، فَبِأَيِّهِمُ اقْتَدَيْتُمُ اهْتَدَيْتُمْ
“My Companions are like the stars; whichever of them you follow, you will be [rightly] guided.” [https://fawaaids.com/2026/08/22/weak-narrations-my-companions-are-like-stars-whichever-of-them-you-follow-you-will-be-guided/]
This is a weak position [according to a group of the people of knowledge], and most of the jurists and the people of examination have rejected it.
2) As for Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī, and those who followed their path among their companions — and it is [also] the position of al-Layth ibn Saʿd, al-Awzāʿī, Abū Thawr, and a group of the people of examination — [it is] that when disagreement pulls in opposing directions, it is [a matter of] error and correctness.
What is obligatory, upon the scholars’ disagreement, is to seek the evidence (al-dalīl) from the Book, the Sunnah, ijmāʿ, and qiyās (analogy) upon [established] foundational principles, [in order to determine] which of them is correct.
If the evidences are equal, one must incline toward whatever most resembles the Book and the Sunnah.
If that does not become clear, withholding [judgment] is obligatory, and it is not permissible to be definitive [in ruling] except with certainty — though if someone is compelled to make use of something of that in his own particular affair, what is permissible to the common people by way of taqlīd is permissible to him, and he makes use of it.
And when the similarity and likeness are extreme and proofs stand for every view, he acts by that which his (ﷺ) saying bolsters:
الْبِرُّ مَا اطْمَأَنَّتْ إِلَيْهِ النَّفْسُ، وَالْإِثْمُ مَا حَاكَ فِي الصَّدْرِ، فَدَعْ مَا يَرِيبُكَ إِلَى مَا لَا يَرِيبُكَ
“Righteousness is that which the soul finds tranquil/is at ease with, and sin is that which wavers/rankles in the breast — so leave what causes you doubt for what does not cause you doubt.” (Al-Tirmidhī 3389 and others, Sahīh)
[Isnād omitted] Ashhab said: Mālik was asked about the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ), and he said: “[It is a matter of] error and correctness — so investigate that [to determine which is correct].”
Ibn al-Qāsim said: I heard Mālik and al-Layth say, regarding the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ): “It is not as people say — that there is latitude/leeway in it. It is not so; rather, it is [a matter of] error and correctness.”
Ismāʿīl Al-Qādī said: “The latitude in the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) is [only] latitude in the ijtihād of [personal] opinion. As for it being latitude such that people may adopt a single one of their positions without the truth [necessarily] lying with him in it — no. Rather, their disagreement indicates [only] that they exercised ijtihād, and [as a result] came to disagree.”
Abū ʿUmar [ibn ‘Abdul-Barr] said: This statement of Ismāʿīl’s is very good.
And in the hearing of Ashhab: Mālik was asked about one who adopted a hadīth related to him by a trustworthy person from the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) — “do you consider him to be, on that account, in latitude?” He said: “No, by Allāh — not until he attains the truth. The truth is only one; two differing statements cannot both be correct together. The truth and correctness are only one.”
Ismāʿīl ibn Yahyā al-Muzanī said: al-Shāfiʿī said, regarding the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ): “I turn, from between the two [conflicting positions], to whichever agrees with the Book, the Sunnah, ijmāʿ, or is soundest in qiyās.”
And he said, regarding the position of a single individual among them: “When no opposer to him among them is preserved [in transmission], I turn to it and adopt it [as my position], when I find neither a [ruling] text from the Book, nor the Sunnah, nor ijmāʿ, nor evidence [derivable] from these — this being when I find qiyās supporting it alongside [that Companion’s statement].” He said: “And this is rarely found.”
Al-Muzanī said: “He has thus made clear that he accepted his [the Companion’s] position [only] by proof. In this — together with their agreement that the scholars, in every century, object one another regarding what they disagreed in — is a clear ruling that nothing should be stated except with proof, and that the truth lies in one direction.”
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Al-Muzanī has mentioned proofs regarding this, which I shall mention here, in shāʾ Allāh.
Al-Muzanī said: Allāh, The Most-High said:
وَلَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِندِ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ لَوَجَدُوا فِيهِ اخْتِلَافًا كَثِير
“Had it been from other than Allāh, they would have found within it much disagreement.” [al-Nisāʾ: 82]
— so He condemned disagreement.
And He said:
وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ تَفَرَّقُوا وَاخْتَلَفُوا
“And do not be like those who became divided and disagreed.” [Āl ʿImrān: 105] — the [rest of the] verse.
And He said:
فَإِن تَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ إِن كُنتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ ذَلِكَ خَيْرٌ وَأَحْسَنُ تَأْوِيلًا
“And if you disagree concerning anything, refer it back to Allāh and the Messenger, if you [truly] believe in Allāh and the Last Day — that is better and more excellent in interpretation.” [al-Nisāʾ: 59]
And from Mujāhid, ʿAtāʾ, and others, regarding the interpretation of that, they said: “[Referring it back means referring it] to the Book and the Sunnah.”
Al-Muzanī said: Allāh thus condemned disagreement, and commanded, at its occurrence, a return to the Book and the Sunnah. Had disagreement been part of His religion, He would not have condemned it; and had dispute been [itself] His ruling, He would not have commanded them, at its occurrence, to return to the Book and the Sunnah.
And it is narrated from the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) that he said:
احْذَرُوا زَلَّةَ الْعَالِم
“Beware the slip of the scholar.” (Declared Da’īf by Al-Albānī in Da’īf al-Jāmi and al-Manāwī in Fayd al-Qadīr)
And from ʿUmar, Muʿādh [this narration is authentic from Mu‘ādh as Mawqūf – see Kitāb al-Zuhd of Imām Wakī ibn al-Jarrāh pg. 86] and Salmān, the like of that, in cautioning [people] against the scholar’s slip.
He [al-Muzanī] said: “The Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) differed — some of them declaring others mistaken, and some of them examining the statements of others and critiquing them. Had all of their sayings been correct, in their own view, they would not have done that.”
It has come from Ibn Masʿūd, regarding more than one issue, that he said:
أقول فيها برأيي، فإن يك صواباً فمن الله، وإن يك خطأ فمني وأستغفر الله
“I say, concerning it, my own opinion — if it is correct, then it is from Allāh; and if it is mistaken, then it is from me, and I ask Allāh’s forgiveness.” (Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq 10899)
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Chapter: Mentioning the Proof from the Statements of the Salaf that Disagreement Is [a Matter of] Error and Correctness — [and That] the Seeker of Proof Is Bound by It; and Mentioning Some of What Some of Them Declared Others Mistaken In, and What Some of Them Criticized Others For, in Their Disagreements; and Mentioning the Meaning of His (ﷺ) Saying: “My Companions Are Like the Stars”
Saʿīd ibn Jubayr narrated: I said to Ibn ʿAbbās: “Nawf al-Bikālī claims that the Mūsā who was the companion of al-Khidr is not the Mūsā of the Children of Isrā’īl.” He said: “He lied [i.e. erred]. Ubayy ibn Kaʿb narrated to me, from the Prophet (ﷺ).” And he mentioned the hadīth at length. (Sahīh Muslim 2380)
Abū ʿUmar [ibn Abdul-Barr] said: Abū Bakr al-Siddīq (رضي الله عنه) rejected the statement of the Companions regarding [fighting against] the apostates (al-riddah), and said:
والله لو منعوني عقالاً – أو قال : عناقاً – مما أعطوه رسول الله ﷺ لجاهدتهم عليه
“By Allāh, were they to withhold from me [even] a hobbling-rope — or he said: a rein — of what they used to give the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ), I would fight them over it.” (al-Bukhārī 7284, Muslim 20)
And ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, may Allāh be pleased with him, cut short the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) regarding the takbīr over funerals and confined them to four.
ʿĀʾishah (رضي الله عنها) rejected the statement of Abū Hurayrah: “The woman cuts off the prayer,” and said: “The Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) used to pray while I was lying crosswise between him and the qiblah.” (al-Bukhārī 1371, Muslim 932)
She [also] rejected the statement of Ibn ʿUmar (رضي الله عنه): “The deceased is punished by the weeping of his family over him,” and said: “Abū ʿAbd al-Rahmān has erred, or made a mistake, or forgotten.” (Muslim 512)
Ibn Masʿūd (رضي الله عنه) denounced Abū Hurayrah’s statement:
مَنْ غَسَّلَ مَيِّتًا فَلْيَغْتَسِلْ، وَمَنْ حَمَلَهُ فَلْيَتَوَضَّأْ
“Whoever washes a deceased person, let him perform ghusl; and whoever carries him, let him perform wudūʾ.“
— and spoke sternly against it, saying: “O people, do not treat your dead as impure.” (Abū Dāwūd 3161, al-Tirmidhī 993, Sahīh)
Ibn ʿAbbās denounced ʿAlī for burning the apostates after killing them — and it is [also] said: before killing them, though the first is more correct, wa-Allāhu aʿlam.
Ibn ʿAbbās argued, citing his (ﷺ) saying:
مَنْ بَدَّلَ دِينَهُ فَاضْرِبُوا عُنُقَهُ
“Whoever changes his religion, strike his neck.”
This reached ʿAlī, and his [Ibn ʿAbbās’s] statement pleased him.
Abū ʿUmar [ibn Abdul-Barr] said: [This is] because the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) did not say, “strike his neck, then burn him.” (Sahīh al-Bukhārī 6922)
Wakīʿ narrated, from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, who said: I asked Saʿīd ibn Jubayr about a daughter and two paternal cousins [sons of a paternal uncle], one of whom was [also] a maternal brother [to the deceased], and he said: “For the daughter, one half; and whatever remains is for the paternal cousin who is not a [maternal] brother.”
He said: And I asked ʿAtāʾ, and he said: “Saʿīd ibn Jubayr has erred — for the daughter, one half, and whatever remains is divided equally between the two of them [the cousins].”
It was said to Saʿīd ibn Jubayr: “Al-Shaʿbī says: ʿUmrah is supererogatory.” He said: “Al-Shaʿbī has erred.”
Abū ‘Umar [Ibn Abdul-Barr] said: This is abundant in the books of the scholars — likewise the disagreement of the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ), the Tābiʿūn, and those opposing one another after them, and what some of them rejected of others’, can hardly be encompassed by any single book, let alone gathered into one chapter.
And in what we have mentioned of it lies proof for what we have otherwise passed over in silence. In the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) retracting to one another, and some of them rejecting others, lies clear proof that their disagreement was, in their own view, [a matter of] error and correctness — for had it not been so, each one of them would instead have said: “What you say is permissible, and what I say is [also] permissible — and we are both a star by which guidance may be found, so nothing is held against us regarding our disagreement.”
Abū ʿUmar said: The correct [position], among what is disagreed upon and pulls in opposite directions, is [always] a single direction — for had correctness lain in two mutually contesting directions, the Salaf would not have declared one another mistaken in their ijtihād, their judgments, and their fatwās. And sound reasoning does not permit that a thing and its opposite both be [equally] correct altogether.
How well the poet put it:
إِثْبَاتُ ضِدَّيْنِ مَعًا فِي حَالٍ أَقْبَحُ مَا يَأْتِ مِنَ الْمُحَالِ
“Affirming two opposites together, in one state at once, is the ugliest impossibility that can occur.”
Ashhab said: I heard Mālik say: “The truth is only one; two differing statements cannot both be correct together. The truth and correctness are only one.”
Abū ʿUmar [Ibn Abdul-Barr] said: Disagreement is not a proof, in the view of any of the jurists of the ummah whom I have known, except one who has no insight and no knowledge, and there is no proof in his statement.
This is a topic in which discussion may expand, and the jurists among the people of examination have gathered much on this and elaborated at length. In what we have indicated lies sufficient substance for whoever understands it, deals justly with himself, and does not deceive himself through the taqlīd of men.
Al-Hakam ibn ʿUtaybah said: “There is no one among Allāh’s creation but that his statement is taken from and left, except the Prophet (ﷺ).”
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said to me, from Ibn Abī Najīh, from Mujāhid, who said: “There is no one among Allāh’s creation but that his statement is taken from and left, except the Prophet (ﷺ).”
Sulaymān al-Taymī said to me: “Were you to take up the concession of every scholar, all evil would gather together in you.”
Abū ‘Umar [Ibn Abdul-Barr] said: This is a consensus (ijmāʿ) in which I know of no disagreement.
(Abridged, Jāmi Bayān ‘Ilm wa Fadlih 2/95-119)
al-Shātibī said: “And He – The Most-High – said [which means]:
كَانَ النَّاسُ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً فَبَعَثَ اللَّهُ النَّبِيِّنَ مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنذِرِينَ وَأَنزَلَ مَعَهُمُ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ فِيمَا اخْتَلَفُوا فيهكَانَ النَّاسُ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً فَبَعَثَ اللَّهُ النَّبِيِّنَ مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنذِرِينَ وَأَنزَلَ مَعَهُمُ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ فِيمَا اخْتَلَفُوا فيه
‘Mankind were one Ummah [then they differed], so Allāh sent the prophets as bearers of glad tidings and warners, and He sent down with them the Book in truth to judge between the people in what they differed over…‘ [al-Baqarah:213]
and it cannot [serve as] a judge between them except along with it being a single separating statement/position [that settles the dispute] between those who differ.”
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Al-Shātibī deduced by this verse that the entire Sharīʿah traces back to a single position.
And the aspect of the inference from the verse: that Allāh sent down the Book in truth to judge between the people in what they differed over, and it cannot [serve as] a judge between them except along with it being a single separating position [that settles the dispute] between those who differ.
And what al-Shātibī held is what the verses and the hadīths indicate.
So from the verses: His words, The Most-High [which means]:
وَلَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِندِ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ لَوَجَدُوا فِيهِ اخْتِلَافًا كَثِير
‘Had it been from other than Allāh, they would have found within it much disagreement.‘ [al-Nisā:82]
– so He negated that disagreement occur in it at all; and if there were in it what necessitated two differing statements, this statement would not hold true of it in any case.
And from the hadīths: his (ﷺ) words:
إذا حكم الحاكم فاجتهد ثم أصاب فله أجران، وإذا حكم فاجتهد ثم أخطأ فله أجر
“When the judge rules and strives and then is correct, he has two rewards; and when he rules and strives and then errs, he has one reward” [al-Bukhārī 7352]
So it is an explicit text that among the mujtahids are the one who errs and the one who is correct.
And this indicates that the truth is one.
Ibn ʿĀshūr said — regarding the scholars of Islām: …. And they safeguarded [i.e. sought absolute clearance for] the religion, so all of them declared: that Allāh, The Most-High, has a ruling in every issue, and that it is one ruling, and that He charged the mujtahids with attaining it and that the correct one is one, and that the one who errs in it has less reward than the one who is correct in it, and that falling short in seeking it is a sin.
(Aqwāl Imām al-Shātibī Fī al-Tafsīr 1/252-253)
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