your robe and wash off the yellow traces.” Did he order him to wash because a person in ihrām may not retain previously applied perfume, as Mālik maintains? Or was it because he had forbidden men to apply saffron, in which case retaining previously applied perfume is not prohibited, as the other three imams maintain? On the first interpretation, was this hadith abrogated by ʿĀ’ishah’s applying perfume to him during the Farewell Pilgrimage?

Another example is his saying, when asked about a mouse that had fallen into ghee: “Remove it and the ghee surrounding it, and eat your ghee.” Is the decisive factor that the ghee was not altered by the impurity, that it was solid, or that it was specifically a mouse that fell into ghee, so that the ruling does not extend to other liquids? There are many such examples. This kind of reasoning is indispensable in religious law, and many scholars, such as Abū Hanīfah and those who reject analogy, do not call it analogy, since everyone agrees on applying it.

Likewise, they agree on ascertaining whether the basis of a ruling is present in a particular case. This means that the Lawgiver attaches a ruling to a general attribute, and one then examines whether that attribute is present in particular categories or individual cases. Examples include His command to face the Kaaba; His command to call upon two witnesses from among our men whom we find acceptable as witnesses; His prohibition of intoxicating drink and gambling; His ordaining release from an oath through expiation; and His distinction between marital separation in return for compensation and divorce, among other matters.

It thus remains to examine particular categories: do they constitute intoxicating drink, an oath, gambling, marital separation in return for compensation, or divorce? Individual cases must also be examined: does this instance belong to that category? Is this person praying facing the direction of prayer? Is this person upright and acceptable as a witness? And so forth. This kind of independent judgment is agreed upon among Muslims—indeed, among all rational people—in relation to the religious laws they follow, their obedience to those in authority over them, and their interests in this world and the Hereafter.