This is the basis of the scholars’ disagreement concerning zakāt al-fitr (the alms due at the end of Ramadan): if dates and barley are not staple foods in a particular country, should its people give their own staple foods, such as wheat and rice, or should they give dates and barley because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prescribed them? For in the two Sahīh collections, Ibn ‘Umar reported:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prescribed zakāt al-fitr as one sāʿ-measure of dates or one sāʿ-measure of barley for every Muslim, young or old, male or female, free or enslaved.”

The scholars hold two opinions on this question, both of which are reported from Ahmad. Most scholars hold that a person should give the staple food of his country. This is the correct view, just as Allah stated concerning expiation:

“From the average of what you feed your families.”

Another example is that he and his Companions generally wore waist-wraps and upper wraps. Is it therefore better for everyone to wear an upper wrap and a waist-wrap, even with a shirt? Or is it better to wear trousers with a shirt, without needing a waist-wrap and an upper wrap? This too is a matter over which the scholars have disagreed. The second view is more clearly correct. This is a broad subject.

This kind of reasoning is not confined to his actions and those of his Companions; it also applies to much of what he commanded them to do and forbade them to do. Some have called this “refining the basis of a ruling.” This is where a ruling has been established concerning a particular case but is not exclusive to it; rather, the ruling applies both to that case and to others. It therefore becomes necessary to identify “the basis of the ruling.”