and contravene the Sunnah and consensus, must therefore be rejected by consensus.

The twenty-seventh ground:

They said: “This mufti should be restrained from issuing fatwas like these, which the scholars and leading imams consider invalid.” Yet it is their own statement that the scholars and leading imams consider invalid. Anyone who claims that the position of the scholars and leading imams is what the scholars and leading imams consider invalid has made a statement—and issued a ruling based upon it—that is invalid by consensus.

For this fatwa expresses the position of the scholars and leading imams: it includes the position of Mālik and other leading imams. As for the other view, the scholars and leading imams [have] no position other than what is mentioned in this fatwa. What these men have stated is not known to have been held by any of the scholars and leading imams.

The twenty-eighth ground:

They said that he should be prevented from issuing unusual fatwas rejected by the four imams and other imams of the Muslims. Issuing such a ruling is invalid by consensus, for the four imams agree that a judge’s ruling is to be overturned only when it contravenes the Book, the Sunnah, consensus, or something equivalent. A ruling that accords with the position of some qualified jurists in “matters open to independent juristic judgment” is not to be overturned merely because it differs from the position of the four imams.

Whatever a judge may rule upon, a mufti may also issue a fatwa upon, by consensus. Indeed, issuing a fatwa is subject to less stringent requirements, since a judge’s ruling is binding, whereas a mufti’s fatwa is not. Whatever the four imams permit a judge to rule upon, they permit a mufti to issue a fatwa upon with even greater reason. Anyone who rules that issuing such fatwas must be prohibited has therefore contravened the four imams and all the other imams of the Muslims. Thus, it is their own statement that contravenes the four imams and all the other imams of the Muslims