any countervailing evidence that would restrict its scope? The followers of al-Shāfiī, Ahmad, and others differed on this question. They transmitted two reports from Ahmad concerning it. Most of his explicit statements indicate that he did not permit people of his own era and others like them to rely on the apparent meanings of the Book before searching the sunnah, the statements of the Companions and Followers, and other sources for what explains them. This is the correct view, chosen by Abū al-Khattāb and others. If it is not deemed probable that an apparent text is free of anything that conflicts with it, then what it entails is likewise not deemed probable. Once it is deemed probable that no conflicting evidence exists, however, what it entails is also deemed probable.

For later scholars, this probability cannot be established with respect to most general texts until they have searched for countervailing evidence. This applies whether the absence of such evidence is treated as part of the proof—in which case the proof is the apparent text standing free of any countervailing indication, as maintained by those among our companions and others who do not hold that proofs or effective causes may be qualified by exceptions—or the countervailing evidence is treated as [an impediment] to the proof, in which case the proof is the apparent text itself, while the contextual indication prevents it from carrying that meaning, as maintained by those among our companions and others who hold that proofs and effective causes may be so qualified. This disagreement, however, amounts only to a matter of conceptual analysis, wording, or dialectical terminology; it does not [pertain] to any substantive matter of scholarship or jurisprudence.

Given this, every contract and stipulation prohibited by Allah and His Messenger is excluded from the scope of the proofs negating the prohibition of contracts and stipulations and establishing their permissibility. Consequently, this rule is of no use for any category of issues unless the particular proofs governing that category are known. It therefore has more in common with the principles of Islamic legal theory—which are general proofs—than with legal maxims, which are general rulings.

Nevertheless, any jurist who deems it probable that no countervailing evidence exists in an issue