This, too, is unsound. Beneficial knowledge is recommended; discussion is objectionable only when it is undertaken without knowledge or causes harm. If one speaks with knowledge and without causing harm, there is nothing wrong with it; if it is beneficial, it is recommended. Thus, neither an unqualified declaration that it is obligatory nor an unqualified declaration that it is forbidden is correct.

The same applies to subsidiary questions of law. Some of the more extreme speculative theologians and jurists require everyone, even ordinary people, to engage in rational inquiry and independent legal reasoning concerning them. This position is weak: even if seeking knowledge of these matters were an individual obligation, it would be obligatory only for those capable of doing so. Yet acquiring knowledge of them from the detailed evidence is impossible or difficult for most ordinary people.

At the opposite extreme, some adherents of the legal schools require everyone who came after the imams—scholars and laypeople alike—to follow others on authority in these matters. Some require this without qualification after the era of Abū Hanīfa and Mālik. Must each person then follow one particular imam, adhering to both his strict rulings and his concessions? There are two views on this, both mentioned by the scholars of Ahmad’s and al-Shāfiʿī’s schools. But is this obligatory for the ordinary person?

The position held by the vast majority of the Muslim community is that independent legal reasoning is permissible in principle, and following others on authority