The second view is that the act is not forbidden for that person because the evidence of its prohibition has not reached him, even though it is forbidden for others. Thus, that person’s very act is not forbidden. The two positions are close, and their difference resembles a difference in wording.

This, then, is what may be said concerning hadiths containing threats of punishment when they concern a disputed matter. Scholars unanimously agree that these hadiths may be cited as evidence that the act carrying the threat is forbidden, whether its prohibition is agreed upon or disputed. Indeed, it is in disputed matters that they most need to invoke these hadiths as evidence. They have differed, however, over citing them as evidence for the threatened punishment when they are not definitive, as we have explained.

If it is said:

“Why, then, do you not say that hadiths containing threats of punishment do not encompass disputed matters, but only matters of agreement? Any act whose perpetrator is cursed or threatened with wrath or punishment would thus be understood as an act whose prohibition is agreed upon, so that no scholar exercising independent judgment would fall under the threat for doing something he believed lawful. Indeed, the one who believes it lawful is even more implicated than the one who performs it, since he is the one who directs the latter to do it. Thus, by necessary implication, the threat of a curse or wrath would extend to him?”

We reply:

There are several answers. (First: prohibition as such must either apply in a disputed matter