and pressed them in issuing legal rulings, his word counted as decisive proof.”
It is therefore said: How astonishing that the opinion of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab should be taken as authoritative evidence, while the practice of Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ (1) is dismissed! Moreover, in one of your own two views you do not even regard a Companion’s statement as binding proof—so by what reasoning can the statement of a Successor carry that weight? Further, you do not deem it obligatory to follow Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab in everything he holds; why, then, must his view be binding in this particular question? Again, had Saʿīd’s position here truly been conclusive evidence, or had the evidence consisted in his contemporaries agreeing with him, as some imagine, Mālik could never have said: “We do not adopt the opinion of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab regarding the muḥallil, and the muḥallil is not required.” (2)
It is clear that Mālik was alluding to himself and to the scholars of Medina who shared his view, indicating that they—or at least the majority of them—did not accept Saʿīd’s opinion about the muḥallil.
They further say, “It is enough for us that three pillars of the ummah hold this view,” meaning al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Aḥmad. Consistency, however, would oblige you to adopt the verdict of those three in every question where three of the imams concur and the fourth dissents, simply because they are the three “pillars of the ummah.” That consequence would bind the followers of every legal school.