He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked to explain what Najm al-Dīn ibn Hamdān stated at the end of Kitāb al-Riʿāyah:
“Whoever commits himself to a school of law is to be censured for departing from it without evidence, reliance on scholarly authority, or another excuse.”
He was also asked to clarify something that had left us puzzled: on certain questions, al-Kāfī, al-Muharrar, al-Muqniʿ, al-Riʿāyah, al-Khulāsah, and al-Hidāyah mention two reported positions or two juristic views without identifying which is more correct or carries greater weight. We therefore do not know which to follow, and if we are asked about the matter, we are at a loss.
Answer
He replied:
Praise be to Allah.
As for these books that mention two reported positions or two juristic views without identifying the correct one, a student of knowledge can ascertain this from other works, such as al-Taʿlīq by Judge Abū Yaʿlā, al-Intisār by Abū al-Khattāb, ʿUmad al-Adillah by Ibn ʿAqīl, the commentaries of Judge Yaʿqūb al-Barzabīnī and Abū al-Hasan ibn al-Zāghūnī, and other extensive works that discuss disputed questions and identify the stronger position. I have abridged the principal questions treated in these works in concise books