regarding the very deed—would that not, by necessary implication, attach to it the threat of a curse or of divine wrath?

We reply: The answer has several aspects.

First: The category of prohibition is either acknowledged in matters subject to juristic disagreement or it is not.

If it is never acknowledged in disputed matters, the inevitable conclusion would be that nothing is unlawful except what the entire community has unanimously declared unlawful, and that everything whose prohibition is disputed must be lawful. This, however, contradicts the consensus of the Ummah and is self-evidently false in the religion of Islam.

If, on the other hand, prohibition is indeed established—even in a single instance—then the mujtahid who deems that forbidden act permissible is either subject to the blame and punishment reserved for one who declares the unlawful lawful or performs it, or he is not. Whether one says that such liability does attach to him or that it does not, the same reasoning applies to a prohibition affirmed in a hadith of threat by consensus, and to a threat that occurs in a disputed matter, according to the detailed explanation we have already given.

In truth, the threat is directed only at the doer, while the punishment for someone who makes the unlawful lawful is, in principle, greater than the punishment for one who merely commits the act without holding that belief.

Therefore, if it is admissible that a prohibition be established in a case of disagreement, while the mujtahid who permits it does not incur the penalty for rendering the unlawful lawful because he