Other groups held that they are prohibited; among them were Abū ʿAlī ibn Abī Hurayra, Ibn Hāmid, Judge Abū Yaʿlā, ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Hulwānī, (1) and others.
However, most people maintain that these two positions can be valid only according to our view that reason can discern good and evil. Otherwise, whoever holds that no ruling can be known through reason cannot describe things, before the advent of revelation, as either prohibited or permissible (2)—as was held by al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Hasan al-Jazarī, (3) Abū Bakr al-Sayrafī, (4) [Abū al-Wafāʾ] ibn ʿAqīl, (5) and others.
The Second Issue:
They disagreed as to whether Allah [Most High] (6) may be described as having imposed obligations upon Himself and made things forbidden to Himself, or whether obligation means nothing more than His informing us (7) that something will occur, and prohibition (8) nothing more than His informing us that it will not occur.
(1) Abū Muhammad ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAlī al-Hulwānī, a Hanbalī jurist and imam, was born in 490 AH and died in 546 AH. See *Shadharāt al-Dhahab* (Gold Nuggets), 4/144; and Ibn Rajab’s *al-Dhayl* (Supplement), 1/221–222.
(2) N reads: “and permissibility.”
(3) N reads: “and al-Jazarī.” He was ʿIzz al-Dīn Abū al-Hasan ʿAlī ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn al-Athīr al-Jazarī, author of *al-Kāmil fī al-Tārīkh* (The Complete History), who died in 630 AH. See *Tadhkirat al-Huffāz* (Memorial of Hadith Masters), 4/1399–1400; *Wafayāt al-Aʿyān* (Deaths of Eminent Men), 3/33–35; and *al-Aʿlām* (Notable Figures), 5/153.
(4) Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sayrafī was a Shāfiʿī jurist and a leading authority in jurisprudence and legal theory. He studied jurisprudence under Ibn Surayj and died in 330 AH. See *Shadharāt al-Dhahab* (Gold Nuggets), 2/325; *al-Lubāb fī Tahdhīb al-Ansāb* (The Quintessence in Refining Genealogies), 2/66; *Tabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya* (Biographical Classes of the Shāfiʿīs), 3/186–187; and *al-Aʿlām* (Notable Figures), 7/96.
(5) N reads: “and Ibn ʿAqīl.”
(6) The word “Exalted” is added in A and B.
(7) N reads: “except His choosing,” which is a textual corruption.
(8) N reads: “prohibition,” which is a textual corruption.