For in their view, even less of jurisprudence is established by scriptural texts; their principal reliance is instead on reasoned opinion and analogical reasoning. Indeed, through their association [with them], the Khurasanian followers of al-Shāfiʿī came to rely predominantly on reasoned opinion, with little knowledge of the texts.

At the opposite extreme are the literalists, such as Ibn Hazm and others who claim that the texts encompass every eventuality through the ordinary linguistic meanings of their terms, requiring no deduction or inference beyond collecting the texts. They go so far as to deny the evidentiary force of an utterance’s implied meaning while affirming it in cases equivalent in meaning to the original case, and in similar instances where particular wording indicates a general meaning.

The middle course is that of the hadith-oriented jurists: they recognize that scriptural texts and reports from the Companions cover most cases, and that cases beyond these are equivalent in meaning to an original case. They therefore employ analogy based on a shared effective cause, analogy based on equivalence to the original case, and the implied meaning of an utterance, since these are among the ways in which wording conveys meaning. Moreover, reasoned opinion is often employed in determining whether the basis of a ruling applies to a particular case—a matter in which there is no disagreement about the use of reasoned opinion