exceptions, conditions, coordinated clauses, attributes, circumstantial qualifiers, and other expressions that qualify and restrict the opening wording and modify the implications of its unrestricted form. Indeed, there is no disagreement on this apart from an isolated dissent concerning divorce, or both divorce and manumission. Some maintain that the unrestricted effect of such a pronouncement cannot be set aside by an appended condition or exception. This is reported from Shurayh and is one position within Ahmad’s school, though it is an anomalous report from him. What is transmitted from him and all other scholars through numerous independent reports is the opposite, and that is the correct position.

The purpose here is not to discuss these particular hadiths and their interpretation, but rather to discuss what the author of al-Ta’sīs adduces as proof, namely