Many scholars never get beyond learning the opinion of the teachers they themselves have encountered in their own lands; they remain unaware of the positions held by other circles. Thus you find that a good number of the early scholars knew nothing except the views current in Madinah and in Kufah, while many of the later scholars were acquainted with the rulings of only two or three of the well-known Imams, and anything outside that narrow range they assume to be contrary to consensus—simply because they know of no one who adopted it and have always heard the opposite proclaimed.

Such a person cannot bring himself to act on a hadith that clashes with what he knows, for fear that it might contradict the consensus, or because he actually believes it does contradict it; and consensus is, after all, the strongest of proofs.

This is the excuse many people give for a great deal of what they leave unpractised. Some of them are genuinely excused, while others are treated as excused even though, in truth, they have no valid excuse. The same holds for many of the causes that precede or follow this one.

Tenth Cause: opposing the hadith with something thought to indicate its weakness, its abrogation, or the need to interpret it away—an objection that no one else, or none of his peers, regards as a real counter-evidence, or that in fact is not the weightier proof at all.