and Hanbalī scholars favored giving precedence to the general wording.

The majority of Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, and Hanbalī scholars, together with a group of speculative theologians, favored giving precedence to the implication. This is explicitly reported from al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others. The issue is open to debate, and this is not the place to discuss it in detail, for it has many ramifications. It is connected with the question of “unrestricted and qualified wording,” a deep sea within legal theory whose various forms have perplexed many who swim in its waters.

The point, however, is that the issue before us does not fall into this category. Even if it did, anyone issuing fatwas according to the schools of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad would be obliged to base this issue on their principles and those of their followers, rather than on principles formulated by certain speculative theologians. These theologians have not thoroughly examined Allah’s signs and the proofs He has explained in His Book and through His Messenger. Nor have they comprehensively understood the aspects and subtleties of the evidence Allah has placed in the revelation He sent down, or mastered the ways in which meaning is conveyed by the clearest of languages—the language in which Allah revealed the noblest of books.

Rather, this issue belongs to the second category: a single, continuous statement whose parts are connected, with its ending qualifying its beginning. An example would be to say:

“Water is purifying; nothing renders it impure when it reaches two qullahs.”

Or to say:

“Water is purifying when it reaches two qullahs