which is authentic:

“If you besiege the people of a fortress and they ask you to accept their surrender subject to Allah’s judgment, do not accept their surrender subject to Allah’s judgment, for you do not know what Allah’s judgment concerning them is. Rather, accept their surrender subject to your judgment and that of your companions.”

The ruler who accepts the surrender of a fortress’s inhabitants subject to his judgment must rule according to his independent legal judgment. Thus, when he instructed Saʿd to adopt the course most pleasing and beloved to Allah, Saʿd ruled in accordance with His judgment. Had he ruled otherwise, his ruling would still have been binding, since he had exercised his independent legal judgment, even if it did not accord with Allah’s actual judgment.

In circumstances like these, where the religious command concerning a particular case is unclear, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir and other shaykhs like him advise “at times” turning to inward prompting and inspiration, if possible, and “at other times” relying on divine decree alone, because no grounds supplied by religious law are available for preferring one course over another—just as the Lawgiver provides for choosing by lot. They instruct a person not to prefer one course merely on the basis of his own will and desire, since this is either forbidden, disliked, or diminishes his merit. Their prohibition here resembles their prohibition of excessive indulgence in permissible things.

Then, if the religious command becomes clear to them, they must base their choice upon it. Otherwise, they choose either on the basis of “an inward cause,” such as inspiration and inward perception, or through “divine ordainment and decree,” which are not attributable to them. Whoever, in such circumstances, chooses by “seeking Allah’s guidance”—just as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to teach his Companions to seek Allah’s guidance in all matters, as he taught them a surah of the Quran—has acted correctly.