answers—and account is taken of the circumstantial indications, in light of which most of those answers do not hold. If these are absent, he has his own customary ways of speaking, and most people’s customary usage does not follow the rules you have laid down. Thus, in most cases, the answers you have given to those who swear oaths do not accord with the Sharia.”

The subject of oaths requires no elaboration of subsidiary rulings, for these three principles govern it well. The mufti must, however, know how to relate particular cases to general principles and apply those principles to them.

Likewise, most of the subsidiary rulings they have formulated concerning adjudication, governance, and other matters rest on unsound principles contrary to the Sharia. This—and Allah knows best—is part of the meaning of Ibn Masʿūd’s statement: “You will introduce new things, and new things will be introduced for you.” Hence these subsidiary rulings multiply and proliferate until no principle can encompass them, because they do not accord with the Sharia.

The Sharia, by contrast, is as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “I have been sent with concise words of comprehensive meaning.” A comprehensive statement is a universal proposition and a general principle