jurisprudence, both among our scholars and others, have held that the ruling applicable to things before the coming of revealed law is presumed to continue afterward, and that whoever holds prohibition to be the basic rule concerning things maintains that ruling until evidence establishes their permissibility?

I say: This is a later view whose basis has not been transmitted from any early scholar of recognized standing. It has been established that, after the coming of the messengers, such things are unrestricted. The ruling derived from that original presumption has been superseded by the revealed evidence I have mentioned. I do not deny that someone who has not fully grasped the sources of rulings, and who lacks discernment where confusion may arise, might extend what applied before revealed law to what comes afterward. Yet this is a grave error which, if pointed out to him, he would recognize. Like an error in arithmetic, it neither breaches the sanctity of consensus nor undermines the established paths of adherence.

People have indeed differed over whether the situation envisaged in that question is possible or impossible, since the earth has never been without a prophet sent by Allah, Adam himself having been a prophet to whom Allah spoke. This corresponds to their disagreement over whether lands can be without a revealed law, although the correct view, in our judgment, is that this is possible. Some have framed the question in terms of someone born on an island, alongside other such discussions. All this makes clear that the question has no practical application: it is purely theoretical, with no bearing on practice, like discussions of the origin of languages and similar matters. Moreover, the incontrovertible truth is