honey, milk, every sort of food and drink, and garments whose lawfulness is manifest, together with transactions and other forms of disposal.
2 – Likewise, the unlawful is plainly defined and its prohibition is unmistakable: eating pork, drinking wine, a man’s wearing of silk or gold, fornication, backbiting, tale-bearing, rancour, envy, and the like.
The ruling on these two categories is crystal clear, for unequivocal textual evidence has been transmitted concerning them.
3 – There is, however, a third category whose ruling is doubtful; its permissibility or prohibition is not obvious. The uncertainty can arise from several considerations:
• Conflicting proofs, where no reconciliation or preference between them is apparent. In that case the matter remains doubtful for the mujtahid who seeks rulings directly from the evidences; if he cannot determine which view is weightier, it is, for him, a doubtful matter, and piety dictates avoiding it.
• Divergent and contradictory statements of the scholars. This concerns the lay follower who does not examine the evidences himself; for such a person, piety likewise lies in avoiding what is doubtful.
• A prohibition supported only by a weak hadith, which casts uncertainty on its meaning.
• All disliked (makruh) acts, for they are a stepping-stone—a ladder of approach—to the forbidden. When the soul withholds itself even from the disliked, it shrinks from venturing further and views it as disobedience, forming a strong barrier against the unlawful.
• A lawful matter that may serve as a means to the unlawful, or that in certain circumstances could lead to it; the same applies to excessive indulgence in lawful things. Exceeding the proper bounds can propel one into the forbidden—either when the lawful item is no longer available or through immoderation in what one still possesses.
Accordingly, this hadith is a cornerstone of cautious piety (waraʿ): whenever a person is uncertain whether something is lawful or forbidden, piety requires that he leave it and avoid it, for should he fail to do so