and is therefore invalid by consensus.
The twenty-ninth ground:
Every school contains positions held by some of its adherents that were not held by its founding imam. Every school also contains positions that differ from those of the four imams. They report these as positions within the school and do not declare them invalid without proof, particularly when a position is derived from the principles of the school’s founding imam and passages from their statements are shown to support it, as their followers do in many questions. The respondent has cited statements of the four imams and earlier scholars whom they revere, as well as statements of their predecessors, which make the positions of Muslim scholars known.
Thus, invalidating a position merely because it differs from those of the four imams itself contradicts the positions of the four imams and their followers. It is therefore invalid by consensus.
The thirtieth ground:
None of the fatwas concerning visitation and divorce to which they objected, issued by the mufti in question, falls outside the four schools. Either his fatwa expresses the position of all the adherents of the four schools—as does his fatwa on this question, “the question of visitation,” for what he stated is the position of all the adherents of the four schools, indeed, of all Muslim scholars, who have set out both what they agree upon and what they dispute—or his fatwa expresses the position of some of the four imams or some of those affiliated with their schools, “as in questions of divorce.” For the disputed questions concerning divorce have been disputed among the adherents of the four schools, and the mufti