The first is to say that most questions of jurisprudence that people need answered and on which fatwas are given are established by a scriptural text or consensus. Conjecture and disagreement concern only a small proportion of what people need, and this occurs in all other disciplines as well. Many disputed questions concern matters that rarely arise or are hypothetical. As for the indispensable knowledge people need concerning what is obligatory, forbidden, and permissible for them, it is known with certainty. What is necessarily known to be part of the religion is itself part of jurisprudence. No early scholar is known to have excluded it from jurisprudence, nor did anyone introduce this restrictive qualification except al-Rāzī and those like him. All jurists mention in their books of jurisprudence the obligations of prayer, zakah, pilgrimage, facing the direction of prayer, ablution, and ritual bathing to remove sexual impurity; the prohibition of intoxicating drink and indecent acts; and other matters necessarily known to be part of the religion.

Furthermore, whether something is necessarily known to be part of the religion is relative. Someone who has recently embraced Islam, or who grew up in a remote desert region, may not know it at all, let alone know it as a matter of necessity. Many scholars know as a matter of necessity that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, performed the prostrations for forgetfulness, ruled that blood money was to be borne by the ‘āqila (those collectively liable for its payment), and ruled that the child is attributed to the marital bed. There are other such matters that specialists know as a matter of necessity, while most people do not know them at all.

The second answer is to say that jurisprudence is only truly jurisprudence when it comes from a jurist who exercises independent judgment and reasons from evidence. Such a jurist knows that this evidence carries greater weight and that this conjecture carries greater weight.