and others of their kind whose prohibition is unanimously agreed upon, and that fact could not be known until after the Prophet’s death (peace and blessings be upon him) and until the whole ummah had examined every individual case covered by that general wording, then the Messenger would have deferred clarifying his statement until the entire community had spoken about every one of those particulars—and that is categorically impermissible.

Third: The only reason the ummah was addressed with this speech was so that it might recognize what is forbidden and keep away from it, basing its consensus upon the hadith and citing it as proof when disagreements arise.

If, however, the only instance actually intended were the one on which they later reached consensus, then knowledge of what the hadith meant would itself depend on that consensus. In that case it could not be used as evidence before the consensus was achieved, and therefore could not serve as the very basis of the consensus—for the basis of consensus must precede it and cannot be subsequent to it. Such a scenario would lead to the invalid circularity of saying that those who form the consensus cannot use the hadith as proof for any case until they know that the case was intended, and they cannot know that it was intended until they have already agreed upon it. Thus citing the hadith would be suspended until the consensus came first, and the consensus would be suspended until citation of the hadith came first, since the hadith is their sole ground. This would make the matter dependent upon itself, rendering its occurrence impossible. The hadith would then offer no proof in points of contention because, by that logic, it would not apply at all—effectively nullifying its function as evidence for rulings in both areas of agreement and of dispute.

That, in turn, would entail that none of the scriptural texts which