such as their transmission of the volume of the sāʿ and the mudd, and their practice of not levying zakat on vegetables or endowed property. Scholars unanimously agree that this constitutes authoritative evidence. Al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and their followers accept it as authoritative evidence without dispute, just as Mālik does. This is also the position of Abū Hanīfah and his followers.

When Abū Yūsuf—may Allah have mercy on him, the foremost of Abū Hanīfah’s followers and the first to bear the title “Chief Judge”—met Mālik and asked him about these questions, Mālik answered him with the mass-transmitted reports of the people of Medina. Abū Yūsuf then adopted Mālik’s position and said, “Had my teacher seen what I have seen, he would have revised his position as I have.”

Abū Yūsuf thus related that his teacher Abū Hanīfah regarded transmission of this kind as authoritative evidence, just as others did. However, this transmission had not reached Abū Hanīfah, just as many hadiths had not reached him or other imams. They cannot therefore be blamed for not following something of which they had no knowledge.

Abū Yūsuf’s acceptance of this transmission was like his acceptance of many hadiths which he and his colleague Muhammad followed, setting aside their teacher’s opinion. They knew that their teacher used to say, “These hadiths, too, are authoritative evidence if authentic”; they simply had not reached him.

Anyone who supposes that Abū Hanīfah or any other imam of the Muslims deliberately opposed an authentic hadith on the grounds of analogical reasoning or anything else has misjudged them and spoken either from conjecture or personal inclination. Here, for example, is Abū Hanīfah acting upon the hadith concerning ablution with nabīdh (a drink made by steeping fruit in water) during