—the view indicated by the hadith under discussion—was held by Ibn Hazm, Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Shawkānī, and other critical scholars. It may be objected: the hadith concerns fasting on ʿĀshūrāʾ, whereas the claim is broader. I say: Yes, but they share the fact that both are obligatory. Do you not see that the Hanafis cited it as evidence for the permissibility of fasting Ramadan with an intention formed during the day, despite the possibility of forming the intention at night, in accordance with the hadith of Abū Dāwūd? Thus, citing it as evidence for what we have stated is all the more appropriate, as is clear to people of understanding.

For this reason, the critical scholar Abū al-Ḥasan al-Sindī said in his marginal notes on Ibn Mājah (1/528–529), in summary: “The hadiths indicate that fasting the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ was an obligation, and this hadith is among them, for such concern entails that it was obligatory. Indeed, its obligatory status was abrogated by consensus and by the hadiths attesting to its abrogation. It has been cited as evidence for the permissibility of an obligatory fast with an intention made during the day. It should not be said that fasting ʿĀshūrāʾ was abrogated, and that it is therefore invalid to cite it as evidence. For we say: the hadith indicates two matters: first, the obligation to fast ʿĀshūrāʾ; and second, that an obligatory fast may be observed on a given day with an intention formed during that day. What was abrogated is the first, and its abrogation does not entail the abrogation of the second; nor is there any evidence that the latter was abrogated. There remains a point for consideration: the hadith implies that the obligation to fast had not been known to them at night, but only became known during the day. Thus, in their case, an intention made during the day had necessarily to be accepted—just as when witnesses attest to the sighting of the crescent on the Day of Doubt. Therefore, it does not establish the permissibility of fasting with an intention made during the day when there is no necessity.”

I say: This is the correct view by which the textual proofs are reconciled. It is the essence of what Ibn Hazm—may Allah have mercy on him—said in al-Muḥallā (6/166). He then said: “A group of the early generations also held this view, as we have related through the chain of … ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jazarī, that”