provided that an independent mujtahid other than al-Shafi‘i had actually acted on the hadith; this would excuse him for departing from his own Imam’s position in that instance. What Shaykh Abu ‘Amr has said is both sound and necessary. Allah knows best. I add: there is another case that Ibn al-Salah did not mention—namely, when the scholar finds no one at all who has put the hadith into practice. What should he do then? Taqi al-Din al-Subki answers this in his treatise The Meaning of al-Shafi‘i’s Saying, “When a hadith is authentic …” (vol. 3, p. 102): “In my view the preferable course is to follow the hadith. Let a person imagine himself standing before the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, having just heard it from him—could he then delay acting on it? By Allah, he could not! … Each individual is accountable according to his own understanding.” A full discussion and verification of this issue can be found in Ibn al-Qayyim, I‘lam al-Muwaqqi‘in, 2/302 and 370; and in al-Fulani’s unique work Awakening the Zeal of Those with Insight to Follow the Leader of the Emigrants and Helpers and to Warn Them against the Widespread Innovation in Towns and Villages of Fanatical Madhhab Loyalty. Every lover of the truth should study that book carefully and reflectively. (1) Addressed to Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal. Reported by Ibn Abi Hatim, Adab al-Shafi‘i, p. 94–95; Abu Nu‘aym, Hilyat al-Awliya, 9/106; al-Khatib, al-Ihtijaj bi-l-Shafi‘i, 8/1; through him by Ibn ‘Asakir, 15/9/1; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Intiqa, p. 75; Ibn al-Jawzi, Manaqib al-Imam Ahmad, p. 499; and al-Harawi, 2/47/2, all through three routes from ‘Abd Allah b. Ahmad b. Hanbal from his father, stating that al-Shafi‘i said to him… . The chain is authentic, which is why Ibn al-Qayyim (I‘lam, 2/325) and al-Fulani (Iqaaz, p. 152) affirm its attribution. Ibn al-Qayyim adds: “Al-Bayhaqi remarked: for this reason al-Shafi‘i relied heavily on hadith. He brought together the learning of the scholars of the Hijaz, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, and he accepted every sound report that reached him, showing no favoritism or inclination toward the doctrine familiar in his own land whenever the truth became clear to him elsewhere or in the position of earlier scholars…"