the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, gave a ruling concerning a particular case, and it is known that the ruling is not exclusive to that case. One therefore seeks to refine the basis of the ruling in order to identify the category of cases to which it applies. For example, when he “ordered the Bedouin who had intercourse with his wife during Ramadan to offer expiation,” it was known that the ruling was not exclusive to him. It was also known that his being a Bedouin or an Arab, or the woman’s being his wife, had no bearing on the ruling. Thus, if a non-Arab Muslim had intercourse with his concubine, the ruling would be the same.

But is the effective cause requiring expiation his having intercourse during Ramadan, or his breaking the fast? The former is the position of al-Shāfiʿī and the position most commonly reported from Ahmad. The latter is the position of Mālik and Abū Hanīfah, and is also explicitly reported from Ahmad concerning cupping; other fast-breaking acts would therefore warrant it all the more. Mālik treats the general category of fast-breaking acts as the effective cause, whereas Abū Hanīfah differentiates according to the kind of fast-breaking act. He therefore does not require expiation for swallowing a pebble or a date stone.

They also disagreed over whether the person must have invalidated a valid fast. Ahmad does not stipulate this; rather, he requires expiation for intercourse during any period in Ramadan when abstention is obligatory, just as all four imams require something comparable in an invalidated state of ihrām (pilgrimage consecration). In his view, an invalidated fast is thus like an invalidated ihrām: both must be continued and completed. Al-Shāfiʿī and others require expiation only when the fast was valid. The disagreement concerns someone who eats and then has intercourse, someone who did not intend to fast and then has intercourse, and someone who has intercourse, offers expiation, and then has intercourse again.

Another example is his saying to someone who had entered ihrām for the lesser pilgrimage wearing a robe and liberally scented with khalūq (a saffron-based perfume): “Take off