Reflect, then, on how Ibn ʿUmar, though convinced that whoever completed the prayer while travelling was in error and at variance with an established Sunnah, did not allow that conviction to make him label such people misguided or brand them innovators. On the contrary, he prayed behind them, knowing full well that ʿUthmān, may Allah be pleased with him, had not completed the prayer out of personal whim—God forbid—but as the result of his own ijtihād.

This is the middle course we hold to be obligatory for Muslims to adopt as a way of settling their disputes: each person is free to declare openly what he believes to be correct and in accord with the Book and the Sunnah, provided he does not denounce as deviant or innovative the one who, because of a doubt that confronts him, does not share that view. Only by this means can Muslim unity be achieved, their word become one, and the truth remain plain, unmistakable, and undimmed.

For that reason we also regard the Muslims’ present habit of splitting their congregational prayer behind several imams—this one a Hanafi, that one a Shāfiʿī, and so on—as contrary to the practice of our righteous predecessors, who gathered for the prayer behind one imam and did not disperse behind many.

Such is our stance on controversial issues among Muslims: to proclaim the truth in the most gracious manner, while not condemning as misguided those who differ with us on account of a genuine doubt, not out of caprice. ⦗44⦘