“Ride your mount, go back to the land you came from, and tell the people: ‘I asked Mālik, and he said, “I do not know!”’ ”

Whenever the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was asked about a matter for which no revelation had yet been sent down, he would wait until revelation descended. Likewise, when the Messenger of Allah questioned the Companions about something they did not know, they would answer, “Allah and His Messenger know best,” and would not venture guesses. This subject, therefore, is both great and perilous. Allah has placed speaking about Him without knowledge on a level even more serious than associating others with Him: “Say: ‘My Lord has only forbidden indecencies—open and secret—sin, wrongful oppression, that you associate with Allah what He has sent down no authority for, and that you say about Allah what you do not know.’ ” ⦗Al-Aʿrāf: 33⦘. He also says: “Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, hearing, sight, and the heart—each of these will be called to account.” ⦗Al-Isrāʾ: 36⦘.

My brother, it is fully permissible for you to say, “I do not know.” Whoever says, “I do not know,” has answered adequately. Do not conjecture or plunge into legal rulings without clear insight. Saying “I do not know” about what you are ignorant of is no defect in you; on the contrary, it is true completeness, for it shows scrupulousness and piety, and people will praise you for it.

Many who lay claim to knowledge—especially in these later times, when jurists are few and mere reciters are many—issue fatwas, pass judgments, and flounder through the rulings of the Sharīʿah on the various media platforms and elsewhere without