to a subsidiary point within it, which does no harm. The same is true of the narrators’ discrepancy in the hadith of Faḍālah ibn ʿUbayd concerning the value of the necklace—was it twelve dinars, or less, or more? This, likewise, is of no consequence, because the variation does not touch the substance of the story.

For this reason the great majority of scholars from every school hold that when a solitary report (khabar al-wāḥid) is received by the Ummah with acceptance—being affirmed when it conveys information and acted upon when it conveys a command—it yields certain knowledge. This is the position set out in the works on legal theory by the followers of Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad. Only a small group of later scholars, following a faction of the dialectical theologians, rejected it. Yet many, indeed most, of the mutakallimūn concur with the jurists, ḥadith experts and early generations on this point; it is also the view of the majority of the Ashʿarīs, such as Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Furak.

Ibn al-Bāqillānī, however, was the one who denied it, and he was followed by the likes of Abū al-Maʿālī, Abū Ḥāmid, Ibn ʿAqīl, Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn al-Khaṭīb, al-Āmidī and others. The first opinion—the one affirming that an accepted solitary report produces knowledge—is the view transmitted by Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid, Abū al-Ṭayyib, Abū Isḥāq and their peers among the leading Shāfiʿīs; by the judge ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and his counterparts among the Mālikīs; by Shams al-Dīn al-Sarakh­sī and his likes among the Ḥanafīs; and by Abū Yaʿlā, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Zāghūnī and their peers among the Ḥanbalīs.

Explanation
Thus the author—may Allah have mercy on him—has cited the statements of scholars from all four madhhabs, a testimony to the breadth of his learning, may Allah grant him mercy. This issue belongs to the field of legal theory