one can fail to notice.
Since this is so, the hadith runs counter to the reports that permit fasting on Saturday—such as the hadith of Ibn ʿAmr cited earlier and others that Ibn al-Qayyim reviewed under this very hadith in a valuable study in which he surveyed the scholars’ opinions. He eventually concluded that the prohibition concerns fasting Saturday on its own, thus reconciling it with those narrations; this was also the view I leaned toward in Irwā’ al-Ghalīl.
What I now hold—Allah knows best—is that this reconciliation would be sound were it not for two considerations:
- It plainly contradicts the hadith itself, as Ibn al-Qayyim has already transmitted.
- There is another way to harmonize the texts while remaining faithful to the methodological rules set out in the works of legal theory, among them:
a) When a prohibitive text conflicts with a permissive one, the prohibition takes precedence.
b) When a verbal statement conflicts with an action, the statement takes precedence over the action.
Whoever examines the reports that appear to contradict this hadith will find them of two kinds:
• Reports describing the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) actions and his own fasting.
• Reports of his verbal statements, such as the aforementioned hadith of Ibn ʿAmr.
It is plainly evident that both kinds are permissive. Therefore, to reconcile them with the hadith we must give precedence to the hadith itself, for it is prohibitive whereas they are permissive. The same applies to his (peace and blessings be upon him) words to Juwayriyyah, “Are you intending to fast tomorrow?” and any similar statement: they, too, are permissive, so the hadith takes precedence over them.