Thus the most commendable way to report a scholarly dispute is to: (1) survey all the views that have been put forward on the issue; (2) identify the sound opinion and refute what is unsound; and (3) make clear the practical benefit and outcome of the disagreement, lest the debate drag on over something pointless and distract people from matters of greater importance.
Someone who cites a disagreement yet fails to include every recognized position is deficient, for the correct view may lie among those he left out. Likewise, one who merely recounts the disagreement without indicating which opinion is correct is also deficient. If he knowingly declares an unsound view to be sound, he has willfully lied; if he does so out of ignorance, he has erred. The same applies to anyone who stirs up a controversy over an issue that yields no benefit.
Should a person list several opinions in wording when, in reality, they all collapse into one or two positions in meaning, he has wasted time and inflated the discussion with what is not true; such a person is like someone “wearing two garments of falsehood.”
When you find no explanation of a verse in the Quran, none in the Sunnah, and none from the Companions, many leading scholars then turn to the statements of the Followers.
Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj and others said, “The statements of the Followers in matters of subsidiary rulings are not binding proof—so how could they be binding in exegesis?” In other words, their views are not authoritative over those who differ with them. This is correct, unless they are unanimously agreed upon, for no one doubts that such consensus is decisive proof.
Interpreting the Quran on the basis of mere personal opinion, however, is forbidden. Whoever speaks about the Quran according to his own opinion has taken on what he has no knowledge of and followed a path not ordained for him. Even if he happens, in fact, to reach the right meaning, he is still in error, because he did not come to the matter through its proper gate—just like a person who judges between people in ignorance: he is in the Fire even if his ruling accidentally matches what is correct, though his sin is lighter than that of one whose ruling is actually wrong. Allah knows best.