Here, we are speaking only on the assumption that this position is conceded. Allah willing, we shall discuss the issue of qualification by the divine will separately.

If Ahmad or another scholar says, “An oath involving divorce and manumission is not subject to expiation because it cannot be qualified by the divine will,” it necessarily follows from this statement that an oath involving either of them cannot be so qualified. As for those among Ahmad’s companions who draw a distinction, saying that an oath involving them may validly be qualified by the divine will but may not be expiated, I know of no explicit statement from Ahmad establishing this distinction. Nevertheless, they are excused for deriving it from his words, since they found no explicit statement from him that there are two reports concerning expiation for an oath involving them [whereas he did expressly state that there are two reports concerning qualification by the divine will in an oath involving them].

Yet this position necessarily follows from one of the two reports transmitted from him—the one they advocate. Anyone other than the prophets may hold a position that carries implications he does not realize follow from it. If he did realize this, he would either accept those implications or not. In the latter case, he would either retract the position from which they follow, or refrain from retracting it because he believed they did not actually follow from it.

When the jurists of our school or others derive from a scholar’s position what necessarily follows from it and from its analogical basis, there are two possibilities: either he has made no explicit statement concerning that implication, whether affirming or denying it, or he has explicitly denied it. If he has explicitly denied it, he may either have expressly denied that it follows from his position, or he may not have addressed whether it follows. If he has explicitly denied that implication, yet they derive from his principles a position contrary to his explicit ruling on that issue—as when he expressly adopts two different rulings in two analogous cases, or gives a ruling a rationale that he contradicts elsewhere, just as Ahmad here based the absence of expiation on the absence of qualification by the divine will, while two reports are transmitted from him concerning such qualification—then this rests upon the question of deriving a position concerning something about which he has made no pronouncement, neither denying [it] nor affirming it: Is this called a position of his, or is it not?