so jurisprudence consists in his knowledge that this evidence and this conjecture carry greater weight. Jurisprudence is not his certainty that he must act in accordance with the conclusion reached through his independent judgment. Rather, that certainty belongs to the principles of jurisprudence. The scholar of legal theory discusses evidence by category and speaks in general terms. He says: “When two pieces of evidence conflict, judgment must follow the stronger of the two.” He also says: “When a general text conflicts with a specific text, the specific text carries greater weight; and when a report with a connected chain of transmission conflicts with one whose chain is incomplete, the connected report carries greater weight.” He further says: “Where a general text is unaccompanied by indications restricting its scope, its inclusion of all individual instances is more probable than their exclusion, and one must act accordingly.”

The jurist, by contrast, discusses particular evidence concerning a particular ruling. For example, he may say that Allah’s words:

“The food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for them, as are chaste believing women and chaste women from among those who were given the Scripture before you”

apply specifically to the People of the Book and were revealed after His words:

“Do not marry polytheist women.”

That latter verse does not encompass the People of the Book. Even if it does encompass them, this is a later, specific text, and thus abrogates and restricts the scope of the earlier text. The jurist therefore knows that this text’s indication of permissibility carries greater weight than that text’s indication of prohibition. He knows this preponderance with certainty. This jurisprudence, which is the jurist’s distinctive province, is certain knowledge, not conjecture. Whoever does not possess this knowledge is merely following the four imams and the majority of scholars who permitted marriage to women of the People of the Book. The belief of someone who merely follows others is not jurisprudence.

Hence his words, “who reasons from evidence concerning their particular instances”: the jurist has reasoned from evidence concerning the particular