ten times.” Thus Allah rewards him for this greeting with something better than receiving a reply, just as whoever invokes blessings upon him once receives ten blessings from Allah in return. Ibn ʿUmar would greet him and then leave, without remaining there to supplicate either for him or for himself. For this reason, Mālik disapproved of going beyond Ibn ʿUmar’s practice by remaining to supplicate for the Prophet or for oneself, because this had not been reported from any of the Companions and was therefore an outright innovation.
Mālik said:
“Nothing will reform the latter part of this nation except what reformed its first.”
Moreover, if the other Companions did not do as Ibn ʿUmar did, his practice can serve only to offer justification for it, as with similar practices observed by some of the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them. As for declaring this act recommended, forbidden, or permissible, that can be established only by evidence from revelation. Obligation, recommendation, permissibility, desirability, disapproval, and prohibition can none of them be established except through such evidence. All such evidence ultimately goes back to him, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him. It was he who conveyed the Quran, and he who taught the Sunnah. Through his words, consensus is known to be protected from error. Analogical reasoning is authoritative only when we know that the new case is like the original case and that the effective cause underlying the original ruling is also present in the new case.
He has taught us that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, does not contradict himself: he does not give contradictory rulings concerning two equivalent cases, nor does he apply a ruling on account of an effective cause on one occasion and withhold it on another when that cause is present, unless one of the two cases has a distinguishing feature that warrants different treatment. His law, then, is what he himself, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prescribed, and his Sunnah is what he himself instituted. The words of others are not to be attributed to him