Chapter: An Account of the View Held by the Faction that Rejects All Reports
Al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
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A man—regarded by his peers as learned—once said to me: “You are an Arab, and the Quran was revealed in the tongue of the very people from whom you come; you, therefore, know best how it is to be preserved. In it Allah has laid down obligatory duties: were anyone to doubt, claiming that the wording of the Quran concerning even a single one of them had become confused, you would order him to repent; if he repented, well and good, but if not, you would put him to death. Yet Allah—exalted is He—has said in the Quran, ‘…a clear explanation of everything’ (16:89). So how can it be permissible, in your own view or in anyone else’s, with regard to something Allah has made obligatory, to say at one time, ‘the obligation here is general,’ at another, ‘the obligation here is specific’; at one time, ‘the command here is binding,’ at another, ‘the command here merely indicates (what is preferable) and, if one so wishes, is optional’?”
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Most of the distinctions you draw on that basis depend, in your estimation, on a single hadith that you transmit—one man from another from another—or on two or three such hadiths that you then trace back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Yet I have found that neither you nor those who follow your school acquit anyone you have met—no matter how highly you rate his truthfulness and accuracy—of the possibility of error, forgetfulness, and mistake in his narrations. On the contrary, I have heard you say of more than one of them, “So-and-so erred in such-and-such a hadith, and so-and-so in such-and-such a hadith.” I have likewise heard you say that if a man were to declare, regarding a hadith by which you have pronounced something lawful or unlawful—matters known only to the specialists—“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not say this; rather, you or your informant have erred, you or your informant have lied,” you would not demand that he repent and would do no more than say to him, “What a wretched thing you have said.”
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Is it, then, permissible to make distinctions in any of the Quran’s rulings when its outward meaning is one and the same to those who hear it, on the basis of a report from someone of the sort you have just described, and to set their reports on a par with the Book of Allah, using them to permit and to forbid?