like cases and distinguishing between unlike cases. The former is direct analogy, and the latter inverse analogy. This is part of the justice with which Allah sent His Messenger. An example of sound analogy is when the legal cause on which the ruling in the original case depends is present in the new case, without any countervailing factor in the latter preventing that ruling from applying. The Sharia never prescribes anything contrary to such analogy.

The same applies to analogy based on the absence of a relevant distinction: that is, when there is no difference between the two cases that carries weight in the Sharia. The Sharia does not prescribe anything contrary to such analogy. Wherever the Sharia singles out a particular category for a ruling that distinguishes it from comparable categories, that category must possess a characteristic that warrants its distinctive ruling and precludes treating it on an equal footing with others. Yet this distinguishing characteristic may be apparent to some people and not to others. It is not a condition of sound, balanced analogy that everyone should recognize its validity. Thus, when someone regards something in the Sharia as contrary to analogy, it is contrary only to the analogy he has formed in his own mind, not to sound analogy as it actually stands.

Whenever we know that a scriptural text runs contrary to an analogy, we know with certainty that the analogy is unsound. This means that the case addressed in the text differs from those cases thought to resemble it by a characteristic that warranted the Lawgiver’s singling it out for that ruling. There is therefore nothing in the Sharia that contradicts sound analogy, though it does contain rulings contrary to unsound analogy, even if some people do not recognize its unsoundness.