of the Mālikī jurists, and al-Qurṭubī and others later adopted the same conclusion, though the first to voice it publicly was the ḥadith scholar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. Ibn al-ʿArabī remarks in ʿĀriḍat al-Aḥwadhī (4/13–16) while commenting on the hadith:

“This report is sound, and no one has acted upon it except Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. Our scholars—meaning the Mālikīs—forbade doing so, yet they disagreed: if a person eats, must he make an expiation or not? Mālik, in Kitāb Ibn Ḥabīb, said, ‘No expiation is required.’ Ashhab said, ‘Yes, because he was acting on a mistaken interpretation.’ Others maintained, ‘The expiation is obligatory.’ In reality, he ought not to expiate given the soundness of the hadith … and it indicates that breaking the fast is permissible once the preparations for travel are in place.”

Al-Qurṭubī, in his tafsīr al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān (2/278–279), after presenting the same disagreement cited by Ibn al-ʿArabī, writes: “I say: Ashhab’s position that no expiation is due is commendable, for the person has done something he is permitted to do, and liability can only be affirmed with certainty, whereas certainty is lacking amid scholarly divergence. Moreover, this accords with the Almighty’s words: ‘…or upon…’”