another because of the truth that has become clear to him is praiseworthy. By contrast, persisting in a position for which he has no proof, abandoning a position whose proof has become clear, or moving from one position to another merely out of habit or in pursuit of personal desire is blameworthy.

If the imam being followed has heard the hadith but has not acted upon it—especially if he has also narrated it—that alone does not justify setting aside the revealed text. In our work, “Lifting Blame from the Eminent Imams,” we explained some twenty excuses for the imams’ not acting upon certain hadiths, and showed that these excuses absolve them of blame for doing so. We, for our part, are excused in setting those excuses aside with respect to this position.

Someone may have set aside a hadith because he believed it was not authentic, or that its narrator was unknown, or for a similar reason, while another person knows that it is authentic and that its narrator is trustworthy. The former’s excuse no longer applies to the latter. Likewise, someone may have set aside a hadith because he believed that the apparent meaning of the Quran, analogical reasoning, or the practice of certain regions contradicted it. Yet another person may have come to understand that the apparent meaning of the Quran does not contradict it, and that the explicit wording of an authentic hadith takes precedence over apparent meanings, analogical reasoning, and established practice. The former’s excuse would then be no excuse for the latter.

The extent to which the grounds of the revealed law are clear or obscure to people’s minds cannot be precisely delimited. This is especially so when someone who sets aside a hadith believes that the Emigrants and the Helpers—the inhabitants of the Prophet’s city and elsewhere—had ceased to act upon it, and it is said of them that they would only set aside a hadith if they believed it had been abrogated or outweighed by stronger evidence, whereas someone coming after him has learned that the Emigrants