is originated in time. Moreover, the uttered words and audible sounds, in their estimation, are neither a command nor a prohibition; they are merely an expression of it.

He said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, known as Ibn Kullāb, used to maintain that these sounds are a narration (ḥikāya) of the command. Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī—may Allah have mercy on him—dissented from that and said, “It is impermissible to call them a ḥikāya, for a ḥikāya must be (1) identical to the thing narrated; rather, they are an expression of the command that subsists within the soul.” Their school was fixed upon this view. If this (2) truly represents their doctrine, then no disagreement can be imagined between us and them over whether the command possesses a wording or not. For if, according to them, the command is the meaning abiding in the self, about that meaning one does not say that it has a wording or that it lacks a wording; such statements apply only to utterances.” And with that his words conclude (3).

(4) Shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Karajī (5) al-Shāfiʿī said in his book entitled “The Chapters on Legal Theory Drawn from the Leading Imams, a Refutation of the People of Innovation and Idle Curiosity”: “He cited twelve (6) Imams, namely (7) al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik, al-Thawrī, Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī, Ibn ʿUyaynah (8), Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Awzāʿī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh, Abū Zurʿah (9), and Abū Ḥātim.”