Principle Fourteen
The duty to act on an authentic ḥadith even if no one has yet applied it

Imam al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him, says in his famous al-Risālah:

“ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, had ruled that compensation for an injured thumb was fifteen (camels). When the letter of the family of ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm was later found—containing the words of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), ‘For each finger of these the compensation is ten camels’—they adopted that ruling. He said: They did not accept the letter of the family of ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm—Allah knows best—until it had been firmly established that it was indeed a letter from the Messenger of Allah.

This report yields two conclusions: first, that a prophetic report is to be accepted; and second, that it must be accepted as soon as its authenticity is confirmed, even if none of the earlier leading scholars had acted upon it. It further indicates that, were a jurist to have already followed a different practice and then discovered