and the Community. (1)
This point was cited from him by the ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir (2) in his work on al-Ashʿarī’s merits, which he entitled Tabyīn Kadhib al-Muftarī fīmā yunsabu ilā al-Shaykh Abī al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī — “Clarifying the Falsehood of the Slanderer Concerning What Is Attributed to Shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī.” (3) In that book he gathered every virtue he could trace to the Shaykh and added other matters to reinforce his case.
Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī said:
“We hold that among the mujtahids in both uṣūl (fundamentals) and furūʿ (subsidiary matters) only one is actually correct, and it is obligatory to specify him with respect to the fundamentals—whereas in the subsidiary matters such specification may sometimes be attainable [and at other times not] (4). Shaykh Abū (5) al-Ḥasan—may Allah have mercy on him—maintained that the mujtahids in the subsidiary matters are all correct, but that is not the view of Imām al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah be pleased with him. Abū al-Ḥasan was one of al-Shāfiʿī’s disciples, so whenever he contradicts him in anything we set his opinion aside [on that point] (7). Of this sort is his statement that there is no fixed formulation for utterances. Seldom indeed (8) does he depart from the principles of al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah be pleased with him…"