—something that simply has no existence and, in our view, falls within the realm of the impossible and inconceivable. Allah, exalted is He, is the granter of success.

Preferring the Sunnah over a consensus unsupported by Qur’an or Sunnah

The meticulous scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

“The leading imams of Islam have unfailingly given precedence to the Book over the Sunnah, and to the Sunnah over consensus, assigning consensus to the third rank. Al-Shafi‘i said: ‘Proof consists of the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Messenger, and the agreement of the scholars.’ He also said in his work ‘Disagreement with Mālik’: ‘Knowledge has levels: the first is the Book and the established Sunnah; then comes consensus concerning matters for which there is neither Book nor Sunnah….’

Ibn al-Qayyim likewise said, while clarifying the foundations of Imam Aḥmad’s legal opinions:

‘Imam Aḥmad would never place before a sound hadith any practice, opinion, analogy, statement of a Companion, or the mere absence of knowledge of a dissenting view—which many people label “consensus” and then advance over a sound hadith! Aḥmad declared a liar anyone who…’