based on evidence that dawns in the believer’s heart but that he cannot express. This is one interpretation of “istihsān” (juristic preference). Those who have criticized this, such as Abū Hāmid and Abū Muhammad, have said: “Whatever one cannot express is mere fancy.” That is not so, for not everyone can clearly express the meanings present in his heart, and many people explain them only imperfectly.

Many who experience spiritual disclosure have it cast into their hearts that a particular food is unlawful, or that a particular man is a disbeliever or an evildoer, without any apparent evidence. Conversely, love for someone may be cast into a person’s heart, together with the conviction that he is a friend of Allah, or that certain wealth is lawful. The purpose here is not to establish that this alone constitutes evidence for rulings of Islamic law. Rather, something of this kind may give the seeker of truth grounds for preferring one conclusion when the apparent scriptural evidence seems equally balanced to him. Giving preference on this basis is certainly better than treating two contradictory alternatives as equal, for treating them as equal is certainly false.

As we have said, acting on a probable judgment arising from the apparent meaning of a text or from analogy is better than acting on its contrary when one must act on one or the other.

The correct position, held by the early generations and the majority of scholars, is that there must be evidence from Islamic law for every case. The evidence therefore cannot, in reality, be equally balanced. It may, however, appear equally balanced to the person examining it because the grounds for preferring one conclusion are not apparent to him. As for those who say that there is, in reality, no single determinate truth, but that every jurist exercising independent judgment knows the underlying truth of the matter, and that neither has any advantage over the other in knowledge or practice—such people