Zayd that he has nullified his jihad alongside the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, unless he repents.” They said:

“‘Ā’ishah mentioned the threatened punishment because she knew it to be true. We act upon her report in treating the act as prohibited, although we do not affirm this threatened punishment, because the hadith has reached us only through a solitary report.”

Their argument is that threatened punishment belongs to matters of belief, which can only be established by evidence yielding certain knowledge. They further argue that, when the ruling on an act is subject to scholarly interpretation, its perpetrator does not incur the threatened punishment. According to their position, therefore, hadiths containing threats of punishment may be cited as evidence that acts are prohibited in all cases, but the threatened punishment is not established by them unless their meaning is conclusive.

A similar example is the practice of most scholars in citing as evidence Quranic readings authentically transmitted from some of the Companions, even though they are not found in the codex of ‘Uthmān, may Allah be pleased with him. These readings concern both practice and belief, and constitute authentic solitary reports. The scholars therefore cited them to establish practical rulings, but did not establish them as Quran, since their status as Quran is a matter that can only be established with certainty.

Most jurists, however—and this is the position of the early generations generally—hold that these hadiths are authoritative evidence for all the threats of punishment they contain. The Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Successors after them consistently affirmed the threatened punishment on the basis of these hadiths, just as they established practical rulings on their basis. They explicitly affirmed, in general terms, that the perpetrator incurs the threatened punishment they contain. This is widely reported from them in their narrations and legal opinions. This is because threatened punishment is among the rulings of Islamic law that are sometimes established by presumptive evidence