Anyone who claims a consensus that contradicts a text from the Messenger, without a text supporting his claim, and believes that those forming the consensus may oppose the Messenger on the basis of their own judgment, and that consensus abrogates a text—as some speculative theologians and proponents of personal opinion maintain—is of the same kind as these people.

If, however, he believes that the consensus indicates the existence of a text that has not reached us and that abrogates the earlier text, then, although his position is unsound, he is exercising independent scholarly judgment in this matter. The error in his position should be explained to him, just as with someone who counters an authentic hadith with a weak hadith that he believes to be authentic. Although his assertion is not true, its weakness should be explained to him.

This is done by showing him that no consensus contrary to the text exists, or by explaining that the Muslim community has never agreed to depart from a text unless it possessed a known text which its members knew abrogated the earlier one. Thus, the claim that a text and consensus conflict is false. It should also be explained to him that such a thing is inadmissible: the texts are known and preserved, and the community is commanded to seek them out and follow them. As for establishing a consensus contrary to them without a supporting text, it is impossible to know that every single Muslim scholar has opposed that text.

Consensus is of two kinds:

Definitive consensus: there is no way to establish a definitive consensus contrary to a text.

As for presumptive consensus, this comprises consensus established through tacit acknowledgment and consensus inferred from surveying scholarly opinions: one surveys the scholars’ statements and finds no disagreement on the matter, or a statement in the Quran becomes widely known and one knows of no one who has objected to it. Such a consensus, although it may be cited as evidence,