and no one can deny it or say that it did not happen. This is the view of the household of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him; of Ibn ‘Abbās, the community’s great scholar and ocean of knowledge, and his companions; of Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī; of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the leading authority of the people of Sunnah and hadith, and his followers, along with the hadith scholars who shared his position; of ‘Ubayd Allah (1) ibn al-Hasan al-‘Anbarī, the judge of Basra; and of the Zāhirīs (2).
Those who opposed these hadiths have offered several justifications:
The first: that they have been abrogated.
The second: that they apply exclusively to the Companions, and no one else may share in their ruling.
The third: that they are opposed by evidence indicating a contrary ruling.
These are all the justifications they have offered for setting these hadiths aside. We shall examine them one by one and explain their merits and shortcomings, with Allah’s help and guidance.
As for the first justification—abrogation—it requires four things, none of which they have supplied: other texts; those texts must contradict these; besides contradicting them, they must be strong enough to counter them; and they must be established as later than these.
Those who claim abrogation said: ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb al-Sijistānī (3) said: al-Fāriyābī narrated to us; Abān ibn Abī Hāzim narrated to us, saying: Abū Bakr ibn Hafs narrated to me, from Ibn