Section: The Principle that the Law Revealed to Earlier Communities Is Binding upon Us unless Our own Law States Otherwise

If it is said: The proofs you have just advanced are confronted by evidence that points in the opposite direction. That evidence is the maxim that “the legislation given to those before us is legislation for us, so long as our own Sharīʿah has not come with something contrary.” Allah, Exalted is He, says:

“So follow their guidance” (al-Anʿām 6:90),

and He says: “Follow the creed of Abraham” (al-Naḥl 16:123),

and He says: “By it the prophets who had submitted [to God] used to judge” (al-Māʾidah 5:44),

along with other proofs cited elsewhere. Moreover, you yourselves accept this rule, for it is the stated position of the vast majority of the early scholars (the Salaf) and of most jurists.

A further piece of evidence adduced in opposition is what Saʿīd ibn Jubayr reports from Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both):

“When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived in Madinah he found the Jews fasting on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ. He asked them, ‘What is this day you are fasting?’ They replied, ‘It is a great day: on it Allah saved Moses and his people and drowned Pharaoh and his people. Moses fasted it in gratitude, so we fast it in reverence for it.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘We have a greater right to Moses and are closer to him than you.’ He then fasted that day himself and ordered that it be fasted.”

The ḥadith is agreed upon by al-Bukhārī and Muslim.