392 – He said, “If you claim that their first course of action is binding upon them, then the second and the third ought to match it and not contradict it. But if you say instead that they had not actually agreed with Abū Bakr on what he did while he was alive, that would open the door for ʿAlī to act on his own ijtihād even when it conflicted with theirs.”
393 – I replied, “Exactly.”
394 – He said, “And if you were to say, ‘I do not recognize this from them and I will not accept it until I find that the generality transmit it from the generality—so that people would report from them: A number of those who preceded us narrated such-and-such’?”
395 – I said, “We do not know of anyone who has ever doubted this, nor has anyone related the slightest disagreement about it. If you refuse to concede that something of this nature can be established, what proof will you have against someone who answers every claim of consensus you make with exactly the same objection you have just raised?”
396 – He said, “A group of those who were present among them— for Allah, Exalted is He, has reproached disagreement, so we too have condemned it.”
397 – I asked him, “Does disagreement carry two rulings or only one?”
398 – He said, “One ruling.”
398 – I said, “Then may I ask you a question?”
400 – He said, “Ask.”
401 – I said, “Do I have any latitude at all when it comes to disagreement?”
402 – He answered, “No.”
403 – I asked, “Do you know of any of the prominent Muslim scholars you have met—those who issued legal verdicts, whether living or deceased—who differed in some matters from those before them?”
404 – He said, “Yes.”
405 – I said, “Then say about them whatever you wish.”