involving a mother, a sister, and a grandfather; there are six views concerning it.

Thus, if this report is authentic, it is clear that it means he adjudicated one hundred cases involving the grandfather. Although that is possible, the opinions he expressed amounted to no more than two or three, and Ali’s position is also variously reported.

Those versed in inheritance law know both of these things, although (1) it is more likely that this report is false. Estates involving both a grandfather and siblings are exceedingly rare, Umar served as caliph for only ten years, and he had refrained from discussing the grandfather.

It is authentically established that he said:

“There are three matters I wish the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—had clarified for us: the grandfather, kalāla (collateral inheritance), and certain forms of usury” (2).

One who had suspended judgment would not have issued any ruling on the matter.

Further evidence for this is that only two rulings by Umar have been transmitted concerning a single inheritance configuration. He ruled (3) in the Shared Case that no sharing should take place. It is reported from him, through the chain of transmission recorded in the works of the scholars, that he once ruled against sharing. This was Ali’s view and is the well-known position reported from Abū Hanīfa and Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

The following year, he ruled in an analogous case that sharing should take place, saying, “That decision accorded with what we judged then, and this decision accords with what we judge now.” This was Zayd’s view, as well as the view of Mālik and al-Shāfi'ī, for they and others followed Zayd in inheritance law. It is also a report transmitted by Harb from Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

This is among the evidence jurists have used to establish that one exercise of independent legal reasoning is not overturned by another.