They said: “A conclusion is judged according to the weakest premises and the best premises; thus, whatever depends upon probability is all the more deserving of being considered probable.”

But the matter is not as they imagined; rather, they failed to understand these scholars’ words. For, in their view, this probable judgment is neither the evidence establishing knowledge of the obligation to know it nor a premise in the argument establishing that knowledge. Rather, they say that conclusive evidence—from the revealed texts and consensus, for example—establishes the obligation to know the probable judgment arising from a solitary report and analogy. That knowledge is attained through the evidence that yields it, not through this probable judgment or its premises.

The proposition, however, is this: if you, as a scholar exercising independent judgment, arrive at a probable judgment, you must act upon it. The presence of a probable judgment within oneself is a matter of inward experience: a person finds and senses it within himself, just as he finds and senses his own action. His knowledge that he has reached a probable judgment is therefore certain, and his knowledge that he must act upon it is also certain. These, then, are two premises yielding certain knowledge: one rests on revelation, and the other on inward experience.

This is like being told: “If you become ill while fasting, you may break your fast; and if you develop an illness that prevents you from standing in prayer, know that you must pray sitting down.” When he experiences the illness within himself, he then knows Allah’s ruling permitting him to break his fast and requiring him to pray sitting down. In their view, the presence of a probable judgment within the scholar exercising independent judgment is just like this.

Once it is understood that this is what their position actually means, the flaw in what they have stated becomes apparent from a different angle: it would entail that jurisprudence is nothing but knowledge of the obligation to