of the afternoon while they were on the road. Some said, ‘We will not pray until we reach Banū Qurayzah.’ Others said, ‘This was not what was intended of us,’ and prayed on the road. He found no fault with either group.”

The first group adhered to the general wording of the instruction, considering it to include even the case in which the prayer’s prescribed time would be missed. The others had evidence requiring that this case be excluded from its general scope, since the purpose was to hasten to those people.

This relates to a well-known disagreement among jurists: can the scope of a general text be restricted by analogy? Nevertheless, those who prayed on the road were closer to being correct.

Likewise, “when Bilāl, may Allah be pleased with him, exchanged two sāʿ-measures for one, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed him to reverse the transaction.” He did not apply to him the rulings concerning one who consumes usury—declaring him defiantly sinful, cursing him, and condemning him severely—because he did not know that it was forbidden.

Similarly, ʿAdī ibn Hātim and a group of the Companions understood the words of Allah, Exalted is He,

“Until the white thread becomes distinct to you from the black thread,”

to mean white and black cords. One of them would therefore lay out two cords, one white and one black, and continue eating until he could distinguish one from the other. “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to ʿAdī, ‘Your pillow must be very wide, then! It means only the whiteness of day and the blackness of night.’”

He thus pointed out his failure to understand the meaning of the words, but did not subject him for this act to the blame incurred by someone who breaks the fast in Ramadan, even though doing so is among the gravest major sins. This contrasts with “those who ruled that the man with a head wound was obliged to take a full ritual bath in the cold. He bathed and died, whereupon the Prophet said: ‘They killed him