Muslims was shed, yet killing them brought the Muslims no benefit, either in their religion or in their worldly affairs. Rather, the good that had existed diminished, while the evil increased beyond what it had been.

If one is not to be faulted (1) for such a judgment, then it is even more fitting that Umar and others not be faulted (2) for their judgments on matters of inheritance shares and divorce. Alī, moreover, shared this reliance on personal judgment with them, whereas his judgment concerning bloodshed was peculiar to him.

His son al-Hasan and most of the earliest forerunners did not regard fighting as beneficial, and this view was more beneficial (3) than the view that fighting should take place, as shown by abundant evidence.

It is well known that Alī’s position concerning the grandfather’s share and other matters was based on personal judgment. He said:

“My judgment and Umar’s once concurred that slave women who had borne their masters’ children should not be sold, but now I have come to the view that they may be sold.”

His judge, Ubayda al-Salmānī, said to him:

“Your opinion together with Umar’s, in unity, is dearer to us than your opinion alone, in division.”

In Sahih al-Bukhārī, Ayyūb narrated from Ibn Sīrīn, from Ubayda, from Alī, who said:

“Continue to judge as you have been judging, for I dislike disagreement, until the people are united or I die as my companions died.”

He said: “Ibn Sīrīn held that most of what was narrated from Alī was false” (4).

Al-Shāfi‘i and Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazī compiled the issues in which the opinions of Alī and Ibn Mas‘ūd were set aside, and these proved very numerous. In many of them, the Sunnah established the contrary, such as the case of a pregnant widow, for Alī—may Allah be pleased with him—held that she