But someone who has established the authenticity of a text, yet knows of no one who upholds it and does not know whether a consensus has formed against it, is like someone who encounters two conflicting pieces of evidence without yet knowing which carries greater weight. He must suspend judgment until it becomes clear which outweighs the other. He must neither express an opinion without knowledge nor follow a text … (1) when he considers its abrogation and its non-abrogation equally likely because of another text or a presumed consensus that he considers to conflict with it. Nor may he follow a general text when he considers it equally likely that its scope has or has not been restricted. The evidence must therefore be free of any countervailing evidence of equal weight: he must consider the absence of such countervailing evidence more probable. Otherwise, judgment must be suspended.

Furthermore, who would suppose that a consensus of this kind could be invoked against a text unless he considered the existence of that consensus more probable, or had another text abrogating the first, supported by what he believed to be a consensus?

In most matters in which the scholars of Medina invoke established practice as evidence, they also have a text supporting their position. The text supported by established practice takes precedence over the other. This is the correct position within the school of Ahmad and others—for example, giving precedence to the hadith of ʿUthmān:

“A person in ihrām must not marry,”

over the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, and similar cases.

As for rejecting a text solely on the basis of established practice, the overwhelming majority of scholars regard this as invalid. Scholars have differed over whether someone who opposes consensus thereby becomes a disbeliever; there are two views.