in the subsidiary rulings devised by jurists of Kufa and those who learned from them.

There are several answers to this.

First, many of these devised, hypothetical cases never actually occur. Where this is so, the scriptural texts need not address them. Whoever reflects on the subsidiary rulings devised concerning bequests, divorce, oaths, and other matters will recognize the truth of this.

Second, these subsidiary rulings and questions may rest on unsound principles. Whoever knows the Sunnah can clarify the ruling on the underlying principle, whereupon all the subsidiary rulings derived from it fall away.

Such are the subsidiary rulings developed by the author of al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr. Regarding most of his subsidiary rulings, it has reached us that Imam Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī used to say: “He is like someone who built