—even if the man were nothing more than a tradesman who does not really know his own craft, indeed cannot perform it properly! Such a person will declare, “This is lawful and that is unlawful,” relying solely on his private opinion or on the fact that he has memorised one or two ḥadiths. That is patent error and a deviation from the right course.

Ijtihād in this community is won only by its foremost masters, and not even the sharpest minds attain it unless they have first acquired the instruments of ijtihād—those preliminaries that open the way to true juristic endeavour: [about one line of the tape is erased here] mastery of the Noble Qur’an and the Blessed ḥadith; acquaintance with the Arabs’ (manāfasāt, sic) and their modes of expression; and, in addition, the ability to comprehend the words of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in the light of the upright religion, just as the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—understood them.

But if a person possesses only a scrap of knowledge and imagines he can clamber to the summit of ijtihād, he is like a sleeper who dreams that he is asleep and, within that dream, sets out to exercise ijtihād! He is weak, mistaken, and altogether unaware of his own limitations, for ijtihād requires exceptional clarity of understanding, comprehensive knowledge of the sciences, familiarity with the legacy and statements of the jurists, awareness of the efforts and practices of the Prophet’s Companions, the sayings of the Messenger himself, the speech of Allah Most High, and all the other means of learning that the scholars have laid down in their proper places.

Returning to the charge that they belittle the scholars, cast their ijtihāds to the ground, and are driven by arrogance and ignorance: whoever disparages the scholars or diminishes their rank, or claims he can domineer over those imams—rejecting their ijtihāds one after another—is motivated by conceit, a deficiency of knowledge, and ignorance of the scholars’ true worth. Such people have been ignorant of many matters, and as a consequence they have fallen into many errors.