and the purity of wine, which he will discuss later. This is a major juristic principle, and I do not know why he has set it aside here, when nothing in the chapter contains any specific text that would conflict with it.

As for his remark, “A small quantity of vomit is overlooked,” it is nothing but an unsupported assertion. Had he referred back to the principle just mentioned, he would have been spared the need for such a concession.

Under point 12 he writes, “A group has held that it is pure,” meaning wine.

I think it fitting to give the names of several leading scholars who adopted this view, together with brief notes on their biographies, so that no one will suppose they were insignificant in knowledge or lacking firm roots in jurisprudence, whereas in fact they were foremost in both:

1 – Rabīʿah b. Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, known as Rabīʿat al-Raʾy. Al-Tahdhīb states: “He met some of the Companions and the senior Successors. He was the chief mufti of Medina; the dignitaries of the city would sit with him, forty turbaned men would attend his circle, and Mālik learned from him.”

2 – Al-Layth b. Saʿd, the Egyptian jurist, a celebrated imam whose merit was acknowledged by the great scholars—including Imām Mālik in a letter he wrote to him. Imām al-Shāfiʿī said: “Al-Layth was more learned in jurisprudence than Mālik, but his companions did not preserve his school.” Ibn Bukayr likewise said: “Al-Layth was more knowledgeable in jurisprudence than Mālik, yet the prominence belonged to Mālik.”

3 – Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā al-Muzanī, the close disciple of Imām al-Shāfiʿī, himself an independent jurist who is classed within the Shāfiʿī school, as al-Nawawī states in al-Majmūʿ, 1 / 72.

Many other later scholars, from Baghdad and Qayrawān alike, shared this view—that wine is pure and that the prohibition pertains only to drinking it—as stated in al-Qurṭubī’s Tafsīr, 6 / 88. This is the stronger position, in light of the principle cited above and the absence of any contrary evidence.