implement legal rulings. Even if that were possible, holding such a belief would still be unsound, because it would render meaningless the words of Allah Most High:
“We have neglected nothing in the Book.” [al-Anʿām: 38]
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Analogy consists in assimilating a new case to an original case in affirming or negating a ruling, on the basis of an effective cause which evidence shows to be the reason why that ruling was affirmed or negated in the original case. That same cause is present in the new case, requiring that it be treated like the original case in affirming or negating that ruling.
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Once the ruling for a new case is known, it becomes an original case, and further analogy may be based on it through another effective cause inferred from it. It is called a new case only so long as it remains undecided between two original cases and its ruling has not yet been established. Likewise, if another new case is compared with that case—after it has become an original case through the establishment of its ruling—on the basis of an effective cause inferred from it, and a ruling is thereby established for this further case, the latter also becomes an original case on which analogy may be based. This can continue without end.
It is not as some uninformed people claim: that legal cases are merely subsidiary cases, so none may serve as the basis for analogy with another, and analogy may be based only on the Book, the Sunnah, and consensus. This is a manifest error. The Book, the Sunnah, and consensus are the foundational sources of legal evidence, so analogy should indeed be based on them first. Analogy based on what is derived from them is valid only when analogy based directly on them proves impossible. Thus, when a case arises for which no explicit text is found in the Book, the Sunnah, or the matters on which the community has reached consensus, nor is anything found in these sources that shares an effective cause with the new case, but such a cause is found in a ruling derived from them—or in a ruling derived from something itself derived from them—analogy must be based on that ruling.
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Know that Mālik and his followers agreed on this point and did not differ concerning it, as is evident from