The reply is:

This addition is what those who distinguished between liquid and solid clarified butter relied upon. They believed it to be authentically established as a statement of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. In doing so, they exercised scholarly judgment and spoke according to the extent of their knowledge and judgment. Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Dhuhlī declared al-Zuhrī’s hadith weak and this addition authentic. Others, however, have found that this addition entered the hadith by mistake and is not a statement of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

This is what has become clear to us and to others. We are certain that this addition is not a statement of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. We therefore ceased issuing fatwas based on it, having previously done so, for returning to the truth is better than persisting in falsehood. Al-Bukhārī and al-Tirmidhī, may Allah have mercy on them both, and other leading hadith scholars have shown us that it is erroneous and that Maʿmar made a mistake in transmitting it from al-Zuhrī. Maʿmar frequently made mistakes, and the reliable narrators among al-Zuhrī’s students, such as Mālik, Yūnus and Ibn ʿUyaynah, differed with him on this. His own transmission of this hadith was inconsistent in both its chain and its wording. He transmitted it from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, from Abū Hurayrah, whereas it is actually from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, from Maymūnah. In some versions transmitted from him, the wording is:

“If it is liquid, use it as fuel for lamps.”

In others:

“Do not go near it.”

Al-Bukhārī demonstrated his mistake in this by recording in his Sahīh, through Yūnus, from al-Zuhrī himself, that he was asked about a mouse that had fallen into clarified butter. He replied:

“If it is