you are truthful.” His words:
“Indeed, many lead others astray through their desires, without knowledge,”
and similar passages condemn those who act without knowledge and follow conjecture. Yet the mass-transmitted Sunnah and the consensus of the Muslim community establish that a judge rules on the testimony of two witnesses and, if there are no witnesses, requires the opposing litigant to swear an oath.
In the two Sahīh collections, the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) is reported to have said:
“You bring your disputes before me, and some of you may present their arguments more eloquently than others. I judge only according to what I hear. If I award anyone something that rightfully belongs to his brother, he must not take it, for I am only assigning him a piece of the Fire.”
The Muslims agree that exercising independent judgment in “ascertaining whether the grounds for applying a ruling are present” is indispensable. Examples include two just persons determining the equivalent compensation for game killed, or using indications to determine the direction of the Kaaba when it is uncertain, and similar matters. A person cannot be certain of the result: the direction of prayer may lie somewhere other than the direction indicated by his judgment. Likewise, when a judge rules, he may have awarded one litigant something that rightfully belongs to the other.
This is unavoidable in the evidence for legal rulings. The apparent general applicability of texts may admit of a contrary interpretation; the same applies to solitary reports and analogical reasoning. Although some have disputed analogical reasoning, the jurists among them, such as the Zāhirīs, have not disputed solitary reports. Those who have disputed both have not disputed general applicability, such as the Baghdad Muʿtazilites. Even those who dispute general applicability and analogical reasoning, such as some of the Rāfidīs—including al-Mūsawī and others like him—have not disputed transmitted reports. The Imāmīs rely principally on what has been transmitted from the Twelve Imams, so they cannot dispense with transmission, and there is no one who