dispute, whether by prohibiting or permitting them. For the distinction drawn by the Lawgiver in the cases addressed by the texts—permitting some and prohibiting others—may also extend to the disputed cases, either prohibiting or permitting them, yet you do not know which of the two categories they belong to. You may therefore prohibit only what you know he prohibited because it lacks the feature that makes it permissible, and permit only what you know he permitted because that feature applies to it. Declaring things lawful or unlawful without a distinguishing principle derived from the Lawgiver is not permissible.

If it is said:

“The hadiths prohibiting prayer are general, so we apply them generally except where evidence establishes an exception. Whatever we know to be excluded because a specific text addresses it, we exclude on that basis; otherwise, we retain their general application.”

The response is:

This would hold only if this general text, from which exceptions have been made, were not opposed by stronger general texts whose scope remains intact, and if the cases excluded from it were known to possess a distinctive feature warranting the distinction. If it were established that this was a general text from which certain cases were excluded on account of a feature absent from all other cases, the remaining cases would continue to fall within its general scope. But how can that apply when its scope is no longer unrestricted, when it is opposed by both specific hadiths and general hadiths whose scope remains intact, and when the cases excluded from it possess no distinctive feature warranting their exclusion alone? Rather, other cases share the feature warranting their exclusion, or have an even stronger claim to be excluded.