Commentary

This is something unavoidable. That the Successors should expand upon the Companions in matters of reasoning and deduction was both necessary and inevitable, because events arose that had no precedent in the Prophet’s lifetime (peace and blessings be upon him). In the same way, whenever new circumstances appear that are not explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an or the Sunnah, the scholars of each era must engage in inference and legal reasoning so that these issues can be brought under the guidance of the Book and the Sunnah. The Qur’an and the Sunnah were not revealed with a specific ruling for every single matter that would occur until the Day of Resurrection. Had they done so, the mushaf (written codex of the Qur’an) would have been a hundred times larger than it is, and people would have been confronted with statements about things they could not even recognize. Imagine, for example, verses discussing cheques, banks or insurance policies—had such matters been mentioned in the time of the Companions, they would not have understood them. Today, however, whenever new issues arise, Muslim scholars exercise reflection, inference and deduction to a degree not required of earlier generations, so that each matter may be aligned with the dictates of Allah’s Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ.