Section

Whatever is other than that is lawful, such as horses, .........................................

His statement, “Whatever is other than that is lawful”: the word mā may be taken as a relative pronoun, meaning: that which is other than that. It may also be taken as a conditional particle, since ʿadā is a past-tense verb whose final fatḥah is understood but not pronounced, and thus no sign of the jussive appears on it. The basic rule concerning what is connected by the particle fa is that it is conditional, for the connecting fa fundamentally occurs with conditional expressions. Thus, when it occurs in the predicate of a relative noun, we say that the relative noun has been likened to a conditional expression because of its generality. This shows that the basic principle is the conditional sense. Therefore, if nothing in the wording determines that mā is a relative pronoun, it should be understood as conditional, because connection by fa is fundamentally for conditionality.

Thus, his statement, “Whatever is other than that,” means: whatever goes beyond it; that is, whatever is apart from it.

His statement, “is lawful,” is the predicate of an omitted subject; that is, it is lawful.

If someone were to ask: What is the evidence?

The answer is the original presumption—meaning that the evidence is the absence of evidence; that is, the absence of evidence establishing prohibition. An example of this is his statement, “such as horses.” Here, we may need evidence demonstrating the lawfulness of horses, since some scholars, such as Abu Hanifah, held horses to be prohibited; others, such as Malik, considered them disliked; while others, such as Imam Ahmad, held them to be lawful.

If we were to say that no evidence is needed to establish the lawfulness of horses, since this is the original presumption, we would say: This is correct; but since some of the scholars have taken a contrary position—