particular incident, and it is clear that the ruling is not exclusive to it. The same applies to all other rulings concerning particular cases, such as that of the Bedouin who said to him:
“I had intercourse with my wife during Ramadan.”
He instructed him to free a slave, fast for two consecutive months, or feed sixty needy people. Muslims agree that the ruling is not exclusive to that Bedouin. Scholars disagree, however, over whether he instructed him to do this because he had broken his fast, because he had intercourse during Ramadan, because he had broken his fast during Ramadan through intercourse, or because he had broken it through an act belonging to the higher category.
Likewise, someone asked him about a person who had entered the consecrated state for ‘umrah while wearing a robe and smeared with saffron-based perfume. He said:
“Remove your robe, wash off the traces of the saffron-based perfume, and do during your ‘umrah what you would do during your Hajj.”
Did he instruct him to wash off the saffron-based perfume because it was perfume, so that anyone in the consecrated state should be instructed to wash off whatever perfume he was wearing? Or was it because this was saffron-based perfume worn by a man? He had forbidden men to apply saffron to themselves; thus, a man is forbidden to use this perfume whether or not he is in the consecrated state.
Likewise, when Barīrah was freed, he gave her a choice, and she chose to leave her husband—according to those who say that her husband was a slave. Muslims agree that the ruling is not exclusive to her. But was she given the choice because she had been freed while married to a slave, thereby attaining full status while her husband remained of lesser status, so that she would not be given the choice if she were freed while married to a free man? Or was the ruling based on her having gained control over her own person, so that she would be given the choice whether her husband was free or enslaved? This is a matter over which they disagreed.
This is a broad subject, encompassing every ruling attached to a particular case when it is known that the ruling is not exclusive to it.