It is also related that he travelled to meet Abū ʿAbd Allāh the Shiʿite. The latter asked him, “Shaykh, according to what did you pass judgment?”

Ibrāhīm ibn Yūnus replied, “According to the Book and the Sunnah.”

He said, “And what is the Sunnah?”

He answered, “The Sunnah—nothing but the Sunnah.”

Ibn al-Ḥaddād added, “So I said to the Shiʿite, ‘Is this session public or private?’”

He replied, “Public.”

I continued, “In the language of the Arabs the root meaning of sunnah is ‘model’ or ‘example.’ A poet says:
‘She shows you the likeness of a face, free of repugnance,
Smooth, bearing neither mole nor scar.’ (1)
that is, the image and form of a face.

Technically, the Sunnah is restricted to three things: performing what the Prophet ﷺ commanded, avoiding what he forbade, and emulating what he did.”

The Shiʿite then asked, “If the reports conflict and the Sunnah reaches you through different channels?”

I replied, “I examine which of the two reports is sounder, just as one weighs the testimony of upright witnesses who disagree.”

He said, “And if they are equal in reliability?”

I said, “Then one of them abrogates the other.”

He asked, “On what basis do you accept analogy (qiyās)?”

I replied, “From the Book of Allah: ‘Let two just men from among you judge concerning it’ (al-Māʾidah 5:95). The game animal is a specific, known entity, yet we were commanded to match it with something comparable from the livestock. Another verse that confirms analogy is: ‘Those who are able to draw inferences from it would have known it’ (al-Nisāʾ 4:83); istinbāṭ (deductive inference) is not expressly stated.

He then turned to Mūsā al-Qaṭṭān and said, “Where did you find the prescribed punishment for wine in the Book of Allah—you who say, ‘Flog him with cloaks and with hands, then with palm branches’ (2)?”

I said, “It was fixed only by analogy to the penalty for slander, because when a man drinks he becomes intoxicated, when he is intoxicated he babbles, and when he babbles he fabricates slander (3).”