in the first of which He mentioned ascendants and descendants; in the second, those outside the direct line who inherit prescribed shares, such as spouses and maternal siblings; and in the third, those outside the direct line who inherit as residuary heirs, namely full siblings or paternal half-siblings. Cases involving both a grandfather and siblings are rare; hence no such case arose in Islam until after the death of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

Disagreement may arise because the evidence is obscure or has been overlooked, because someone has not heard it, because a text has been misunderstood, or because someone believes that stronger countervailing evidence exists. The purpose here is to outline the subject, not to discuss its details.

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Disagreement in Quranic interpretation is of “two types”: one rests solely on transmitted reports, while the other can be understood through other means. For knowledge rests either on reliable transmission or on soundly established inference. Transmitted reports come either from one protected from error or from someone not protected from error. The point is that transmitted material in general—whether from one protected from error or from someone else, this being the first type—includes reports whose soundness or weakness can be determined and others for which this cannot be determined.

This “second category of transmitted material”—that whose truth we have no way of establishing with certainty—consists mostly of matters of no benefit. Discussing them is therefore superfluous.