can dispense with apparent textual meanings, transmitted reports, and analogical reasoning. Rather, everyone must act on some of these while acknowledging that the contrary is possible. This is acting on conjecture, yet the Quran has forbidden following conjecture. People have taken different approaches to explaining why this is permissible.

One group said:

“Only knowledge is ever to be followed; conjecture is not to be acted upon at all.”

They maintain that a solitary report yields knowledge, and say the same of apparent textual meanings. Indeed, they say, “We are certain that whoever disagrees with us is mistaken, and we overturn his ruling,” as Dāwūd and his followers maintain. Their principal basis, however, is merely what they suppose to be the apparent meaning—as for the presumption of continuity, it is in many cases among the weakest forms of evidence. Moreover, much of what they adduce as evidence may not represent the apparent meaning of the wording at all; rather, its apparent meaning is the opposite.

Another group said:

“Since evidence has established the obligation to act on what is most probable, we are following knowledge. Thus, when knowledge is present, we act on knowledge, not conjecture.”

This is the approach of the judge Abū Bakr and his followers. Here arises the familiar question concerning the “definition of jurisprudence” as knowledge of the practical rulings of the Sharia. Al-Rāzī defined it as “knowledge of the practical rulings of the Sharia, established individually through inference, such that their being part of the religion is not known self-evidently.” He said:

“If you ask, ‘Jurisprudence concerns probable judgments, so how have you defined it as knowledge?’ I reply: When a jurist exercising independent judgment considers it most likely that one case shares with another the operative basis of