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B13 · باب القياس · Qiyās: its authority, prerequisites, reasoning from texts, conditions, pillar, ruling, istiḥsān, and no specification of causes (v2/118–215)

B13a.01 · مذهب الجمهور ومنكرو القياس · Qiyās extends a textual ruling to new cases; it cannot found a ruling from the start; its deniers are al-Naẓẓām, a Baghdad theologian, Dāwūd and the Ẓāhirīs (v2/118–119)
B13a.02 · شبه نفاة القياس · The deniers' case: the Book suffices; opinion is putting oneself before God; the reports against opinion; analogy carries doubt; worship is not known by opinion (v2/119–124)
B13a.03 · أدلة الكتاب · "Take heed" commands qiyās; the ribā cause is found exactly as the stoning cause in Māʿiz's case is found; drawing out and referring disputes also mean qiyās (v2/124–129)
B13a.04 · أدلة السنة والإجماع · The Prophet taught analogy and commanded it; the Companions agreed on using opinion where there is no text (v2/129–133)
B13a.05 · الرد على الطاعنين في الصحابة · Their opinions were not mere reconciliation nor a privilege; their conduct is reconciled with the texts and proves no special licence to contradict them (v2/133–138)
B13a.06 · الدليل المعقول · The Qurʾān explains everything by its meanings; every event has a ruling; istiṣḥāb is acting on ignorance, resorted to only in sheer necessity; the cause is made effective by God, not by us (v2/138–143)
B13b.01 · ما لا بد للقياس من معرفته · Qiyās is studied in five steps: its language meaning, condition, pillar, ruling, and the defence against it; its structure mirrors a lawsuit (v2/143–144)
B13c.01 · تعليل الأصول · A text may be reasoned from only after proof that this text is caused here and now; the presumption that texts are caused is not enough (v2/144–149)
B13d.01 · شروط القياس الخمسة · Five conditions: the root's ruling is not special to it by another text; not an exception to qiyās; the reasoning extends the same legal ruling to a like branch with no text; the root's ruling stays as it was; no word of the text is voided (v2/149–151)
B13d.02 · الشرط الأول: ما ثبت خصوصه بالنص · What a text made special is not reasoned from: Khuzayma, the Prophet's marriages, the term in salam, usufructs (v2/151–153)
B13d.03 · الشرط الثاني: المعدول به عن القياس · What departs from qiyās is not extended: date-drink wuḍūʾ, laughter in prayer, eating while forgetful, building on prayer after ḥadath, forgetting the tasmiya (v2/153–155)
B13d.04 · الشرط الثالث (أ): لا قياس في اللغة ولا فيما لا يتعدى · The third condition, the richest: no legal qiyās to establish names; no reasoning by a cause that does not extend or into another text (v2/155–161)
B13d.05 · الشرط الثالث (ب): عين الحكم إلى نظيره ولا نص فيه · The same ruling, to a like branch, where there is no text (v2/161–165)
B13d.06 · الشرط الرابع: بقاء حكم النص · The text's ruling must stay as it was: the testimony of one given the qadhf ḥadd, the fāsiq, liʿān; six objections answered (v2/165–170)
B13d.07 · الشرط الخامس وما لا مدخل للقياس فيه · No voiding a word of the text: the five harmful animals, "and the excess is ribā", "ever"; and questions qiyās cannot reach (v2/170–174)
B13e.01 · ركن القياس · The pillar is the feature, among the text's features, made a sign of the ruling, by which the branch becomes like the root; it may be inherent, incidental, a name, a ruling; single, paired or several; in the text or outside it (v2/174–176)
B13e.02 · دليل صحة العلة · What shows a feature is the cause: the Ṭard school says co-occurrence (and co-absence); the jurists say suitability then uprightness, as a witness needs fitness and then uprightness, and ours prove uprightness by effect (athar) (v2/176–178)
B13e.03 · الرد على أهل الطرد والإخالة · Co-occurrence fails because a condition also turns with the ruling; "suggestiveness" is private opinion; testing against the roots is only more witnesses; effect is shown in the salaf's own reasoning (v2/178–187)
B13e.04 · المؤثر في الفقه · The imams reasoned by effective features, and so do we in disputed questions; such reasoning is still qiyās even when the root goes unnamed (v2/188–192)
B13f.01 · حكم القياس · The ruling of qiyās is extension to a branch without a text, not tying the ruling in the text to the cause, against al-Shāfiʿī (v2/192–193)
B13f.02 · مواضع القياس · Qiyās has no place in establishing or denying a cause, a condition or a ruling from the start, or their attributes; only in whether an agreed ruling extends beyond its text (v2/193–199)
B13g.01 · الاستحسان · Istiḥsān is not following desire: it is either judging amounts left to opinion, or the stronger of two proofs, overriding the obvious qiyās (v2/199–201)
B13g.02 · ترك القياس أصلا · Where istiḥsān is taken, qiyās is dropped entirely, not merely outweighed; it is left by text, consensus or necessity (v2/201–203)
B13g.03 · القياس والاستحسان نوعان · Each is of two kinds; preference goes by strength of effect, not by being obvious or hidden; a hidden-qiyās istiḥsān extends, one based on text or consensus does not (v2/203–208)
B13h.01 · لا تخصيص في العلل الشرعية · A legal cause cannot be "specified": if the ruling fails where the feature exists, the cause itself is absent there or was never the cause; allowing specification leans to Muʿtazilī doctrine (v2/208–215)

B13a.01 · مذهب الجمهور ومنكرو القياس · Qiyās extends a textual ruling to new cases; it cannot found a ruling from the start; its deniers are al-Naẓẓām, a Baghdad theologian, Dāwūd and the Ẓāhirīs (v2/118–119)

Position: the doctrine of the Companions, Followers and imams is «جَوَاز الْقيَاس بِالرَّأْيِ على الْأُصُول الَّتِي تثبت أَحْكَامهَا بِالنَّصِّ لتعدية حكم النَّص إِلَى الْفُرُوع جَائِز مُسْتَقِيم يدان الله بِهِ» — "that qiyās by opinion on the roots whose rulings are fixed by text, to extend the text's ruling to branches, is valid and sound, a thing by which one worships God", one of the means of knowing legal rulings, «وَلكنه غير صَالح لإِثْبَات الحكم بِهِ ابْتِدَاء» — "but it is not fit to establish a ruling from the start." (v2/118)
Who: the Ẓāhirīs: it cannot extend a ruling at all. First al-Naẓẓām, who attacked the salaf for it ("he threw off the noose of Islam"); then a Baghdad theologian who said the Companions' analogies were only for reconciling disputants; then «ثمَّ نَشأ بعده رجل متجاهل يُقَال لَهُ دَاوُد الْأَصْبَهَانِيّ» (v2/119) — "then there arose after him a man who feigned ignorance, called Dāwūd al-Aṣbahānī", followed by the Ẓāhirīs. Attributing it to Qatāda, Masrūq and Ibn Sīrīn is a fabrication. (v2/118–119)
Their three variants: reason cannot know religion at all; it cannot in legal rulings; it can only in necessity, and there is none, since istiṣḥāb (continuing the prior state) is available. The last is "the most moderate", so Sarakhsī must show that qiyās is an original proof, not a necessity, and that it comes before istiṣḥāb. (v2/119)

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B13a.02 · شبه نفاة القياس · The deniers' case: the Book suffices; opinion is putting oneself before God; the reports against opinion; analogy carries doubt; worship is not known by opinion (v2/119–124)

Texts: Q 29:51, 16:89, 6:38, 6:59: everything is in the Book by text, indication, implied meaning or presupposition; otherwise the base of permission holds (Q 6:145; 2:29). Q 49:1; 5:44–47; 16:116. Reports: the Israelites strayed when "the children of captives" multiplied and made analogies; "this community will act for a time by the Book, then the Sunna, then opinion, and then they will stray"; ʿUmar: "beware the people of opinion, enemies of the religion"; Ibn Masʿūd: "beware 'what do you think' (araʾayta)"; "whoever interprets the Qurʾān by his opinion". Using opinion on the language of a text (Ibn ʿAbbās and Zayd on "the mother's third") is acting on the text. And "you yourselves void a non-extending cause", since the ruling is already in the text, so such reasoning only seeks wisdom. (v2/119–121) → B13d.04
Reasoning: the causal feature is not in the text, so choosing it carries doubt, and God's rights are not established by doubt (Q 17:36; 4:171); single reports are a different case: the Prophet's word is certain, and doubt lies only in transmission. Choosing a feature is like Iblīs's analogy (Q 7:12). Worship is by test, not opinion, and many rulings are beyond or against it (amounts). Rulings are diverse and causes many. Keeping to texts preserves them and deepens knowledge of the language. War, values, dower and the qibla are human matters, based on the senses, and by necessity. (v2/121–124)

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B13a.03 · أدلة الكتاب · "Take heed" commands qiyās; the ribā cause is found exactly as the stoning cause in Māʿiz's case is found; drawing out and referring disputes also mean qiyās (v2/124–129)

"Take heed, O people of insight" (Q 59:2): Thaʿlab: «الِاعْتِبَار فِي اللُّغَة هُوَ رد حكم الشَّيْء إِلَى نَظِيره» (v2/125) — "iʿtibār in the language is returning a thing's ruling to its like", which is qiyās. Taking heed from past nations is the same act: judging one's case by theirs. Retaliation is "life" (Q 2:179) by that reasoning. No difference between destruction for unbelief and a prohibition for measure and genus. (v2/124–125)
Objection → Reply: "you may extend a stated cause (the stoning of Māʿiz for zinā while muḥṣan), not one drawn by opinion (measure and genus in ribā)". Reply: «قُلْنَا نَحن لَا نثبت حكم الرِّبَا فِي الْفُرُوع بعلة الْقدر وَالْجِنْس إِلَّا من الْوَجْه الَّذِي ثَبت حكم الرَّجْم فِي حق غير مَاعِز بعلة الزِّنَا بعد الْإِحْصَان» (v2/126) — "We establish ribā in the branches by measure and genus only in the way stoning is established for others than Māʿiz by zinā after iḥṣān." Iḥṣān is a condition, not the cause, since a blessing cannot cause punishment; likewise the text on wheat forbids the excess without counter-value, which is known only after equality by measure and genus, disregarding quality ("its good and bad are equal"): dropping quality's value is a condition, like iḥṣān, and measure and genus are the cause, like zinā. (v2/125–128)
"Those who draw it out" (Q 4:83): drawing out is extracting the meaning by opinion, whether to extend the ruling or for the heart's reassurance (Q 39:22; 22:46). The mujtahid gains knowledge "by the apparent", like "if you know them to be believers" (Q 60:10). "Refer it to God and the Messenger" (Q 4:59): conditioned on dispute, which rarely arises where there is a text, so it means referring by likeness. (v2/128–129)

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B13a.04 · أدلة السنة والإجماع · The Prophet taught analogy and commanded it; the Companions agreed on using opinion where there is no text (v2/129–133)

The Prophet's teaching: the kiss and rinsing the mouth; the Khathʿamī woman ("God's debt is more worthy"); making up Ramaḍān separately; the mustaḥāḍa's "vein"; the cat "among those who go around". Muʿādh ("I will use my opinion"), Abū Mūsā, and ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ ("if you strive and are right, ten rewards; if wrong, one"). (v2/129–131)
Consultation: the adhān; the Badr captives (Abū Bakr likened to Ibrāhīm and Mīkāʾīl, ʿUmar to Nūḥ and Jibrīl), where the reproach (Q 8:68) was for the taking, not the consulting; and this binds only one who says every mujtahid is right, «وَنحن لَا نقُول بِهَذَا» (v2/131) — "and we do not say that": the mujtahid may err or be right. "Consult them in the matter" (Q 3:159) is not only about war; "in what is not revealed to me I am like you two". The caliphate settled by ʿUmar's analogy ("will you not accept for your worldly affairs the one the Messenger accepted for your religion?", the prayer; the objection that the Prophet also had ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf lead prayer fails, since ʿUmar's inference rests on what did not hold for Ibn ʿAwf: the Prophet chose Abū Bakr «فِي حَال توفر الصَّحَابَة وَحُضُور جَمَاعَتهمْ» (v2/132) — "when the Companions were many and assembled" and a successor was needed, and kept to him «بَعْدَمَا راجعوه فِي ذَلِك وَسموا لَهُ غَيره» (v2/132) — "after they had pressed him on it and named others to him"); the shūrā and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān's choice; the grandfather and brothers (a valley and river, a tree and branch); ʿawl; tashrīk ("suppose our father was a donkey"). «فَعرفنَا أَنهم كَانُوا مُجْمِعِينَ على جَوَاز الْعَمَل بِالرَّأْيِ فِيمَا لَا نَص فِيهِ وَكفى بإجماعهم حجَّة» (v2/132) — "So we know they agreed on using opinion where there is no text, and their consensus is proof enough." (v2/131–132)
The statements against opinion are about opinion against a text, or from desire, or obstinate questioning; and ʿAlī's "if religion were by opinion" means the law's foundation, which is not built on opinion, so no ruling is established by it from the start. Abū Bakr's words have a variant reading ("contrary to what God meant"). The positive record: Abū Bakr's own "I say it by my opinion" on kalāla; ʿUmar's use of opinion "plainer than the sun"; ʿAlī's "my view and ʿUmar's agreed…"; Ibn Masʿūd's "I use my opinion" on the mufawwaḍa; ʿUmar to Abū Mūsā: "know the likes and the resemblances, and compare matters". (v2/132–133)

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B13a.05 · الرد على الطاعنين في الصحابة · Their opinions were not mere reconciliation nor a privilege; their conduct is reconciled with the texts and proves no special licence to contradict them (v2/133–138)

Those who attack the Companions for using opinion: «فَمن طعن فيهم فَهُوَ ملحد منابذ لِلْإِسْلَامِ دواؤه السَّيْف إِن لم يتب» (v2/134) — "whoever attacks them is a heretic opposed to Islam; his cure is the sword, if he does not repent", since the law reached us through them. "It was only reconciliation" denies what is known: the reporters knew judgment from reconciliation (Ibn Masʿūd's "and ʿUthmān accepted it" marks a reconciliation). (v2/133–134)
Who: some say the Companions were specially allowed opinion, even against texts: Abū Bakr stepping back at prayer; ʿUmar pulling at the Prophet over Ibn Ubayy; ʿAlī refusing to erase "Messenger of God" at al-Ḥudaybiya; Muʿādh's order as a latecomer; Abū Dharr praying without purity; ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ's tayammum in the cold. (v2/134–135)
Reply: that is itself a slur on them. All but ʿAmr's were a choice of the strict course (ʿazīma) where the Prophet's word bore a concession: Abū Bakr's "the son of Abū Quḥāfa may not stand before the Messenger" (Q 49:1); ʿUmar's refusal to honour a declared unbeliever; ʿAlī's firmness before the enemy; Muʿādh following the imam first. Abū Dharr, if the report is sound: «فَلَعَلَّهُ كَانَ عِنْده أَن المُرَاد» (v2/138) — "perhaps he held that what is meant" by "touched" is touching by hand, so no tayammum for the junub; he then held that inability dropped the duty of purity within the time, and praying in the time was the strict course he kept to. ʿAmr held that «فرض الِاغْتِسَال سَاقِط عَنهُ» (v2/138) — "the duty of washing had lapsed for him" through the hardship of the cold or fear of death, and the text makes tayammum lawful to remove hardship. The wine punishment was by analogy with qadhf, then consensus. (v2/135–138)

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B13a.06 · الدليل المعقول · The Qurʾān explains everything by its meanings; every event has a ruling; istiṣḥāb is acting on ignorance, resorted to only in sheer necessity; the cause is made effective by God, not by us (v2/138–143)

Taking heed from past nations and taking heed of the ribā text are one act. The Qurʾān explains "everything" (Q 16:89) by meanings, not by names: "uff" forbids beating; "not a date-speck" (Q 4:124); the trustworthy with a qinṭār (Q 3:75). Meanings are plain or hidden, and the hidden needs reflection: that is "take heed". So establishing the ruling wherever that meaning is found «يكون إِثْبَاتًا بِالنَّصِّ لَا بِالرَّأْيِ» (v2/139) — "is establishing it by the text, not by opinion", even where the text's wording does not cover it, as the stoning of Māʿiz applied to others by its meaning. Every event has a ruling of God, texts are finite, and events are not. (v2/138–139)
Istiṣḥāb: «فَأَما اسْتِصْحَاب الْحَال فَهُوَ عمل بِالْجَهْلِ فَلَا يجوز الْمصير إِلَيْهِ إِلَّا عِنْد الضَّرُورَة الْمَحْضَة بِمَنْزِلَة تنَاول الْميتَة» (v2/140) — "Continuing the prior state is acting on ignorance; it may be resorted to only in pure necessity, like eating carrion." Qiyās gives more knowledge than istiṣḥāb, which rests on not knowing of a changing proof. (v2/140–141)
Replies to their verses: qiyās is in the Book by indication ("take heed"), so it is judging by what God revealed. It is not putting oneself before God: «وَالْعلَّة مَا صَارَت مُؤثرَة بآرائنا بل بِجعْل الله إِيَّاهَا مُؤثرَة» (v2/141) — "a cause does not become effective by our opinions but by God's making it effective"; opinion only picks it out. Q 17:36 negates knowledge in general, and opinion gives knowledge "by the apparent"; certainty is not required for action (single reports, war, qibla, medicine). What opinion yields is right for us, like the qibla searcher's direction; its remaining doubt is like a single report's. Their distinction between God's pure rights and human matters is not strong: the qibla is sought for what is purely God's right. (v2/141–142)
Condition: «وَلِهَذَا شرطنا للْعَمَل بِالرَّأْيِ أَن تكون الْحَادِثَة لَا نَص فِيهَا من كتاب وَلَا سنة» (v2/142) — "Hence we made it a condition for acting by opinion that the case have no text from the Book or Sunna", which demands knowing the texts and their meanings. Qiyās applies only where the ruling's meaning is understood. The blamed opinion is the one from desire or aimed at rejecting a text, like Iblīs's; God commanded opinion in valuing game (Q 5:95). (v2/142–143)
[Editorial] Debate note: Sarakhsī's language about Dāwūd ("one who feigned ignorance") and about those who attack the Companions is polemical; quote it as his. His substantive claims are the condition "no text", the cause made effective by God, and qiyās above istiṣḥāb.

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B13b.01 · ما لا بد للقياس من معرفته · Qiyās is studied in five steps: its language meaning, condition, pillar, ruling, and the defence against it; its structure mirrors a lawsuit (v2/143–144)

Order: meaning, condition, pillar, ruling, then defence, «فَإِن تَمام الْإِلْزَام إِنَّمَا يتَبَيَّن بِالْعَجزِ عَن الدّفع» — "for full binding force shows only when the other side cannot defend". (v2/143)
Language: the form means "measuring" (qiyās al-naʿl bi-l-naʿl; the doctor probing a wound); in rulings it means returning a thing to its like so that it shares the needed ruling. It is also called naẓar (examination) and, figuratively, ijtihād. (v2/143)
The lawsuit model: texts are witnesses to God's rights, and their meaning is the testimony. The witness must be fit (the text must have an understood meaning), and so must the testimony (the feature must be suitable for the ruling or effective in it). The one reasoning is the claimant; the sought thing is the legal ruling, extended to branches; the party bound is one's own heart, or the opponent in debate; the heart is the judge. Then the defence becomes possible, as after proof in a lawsuit. al-Shāfiʿī and others differ on some of this. (v2/144)

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B13c.01 · تعليل الأصول · A text may be reasoned from only after proof that this text is caused here and now; the presumption that texts are caused is not enough (v2/144–149)

Who: three views. (1) Texts are not caused in principle, unless a proof shows it in each case. (2) They are caused unless a proof prevents it. (3) «وَالْأَشْبَه بِمذهب الشَّافِعِي» (v2/144) — "the closest to al-Shāfiʿī's doctrine": caused in principle, but each needs a proof that picks out the causing feature. «وَالْمذهب عِنْد عُلَمَائِنَا أَنه لَا بُد مَعَ هَذَا من قيام دَلِيل يدل على كَونه معلولا فِي الْحَال» (v2/144) — "The doctrine of our scholars: beyond this, there must be a proof that it is caused here and now." Our scholars also require a proof that picks out the feature, by another route than al-Shāfiʿī's. (v2/144–147)
⚑ Who (ours): those of our colleagues who argue that gold and silver are caused merely because texts are caused in principle are not right until a proof shows that this text is caused now. (v2/145)
View 1's proofs: before reasoning, the ruling rests on the text's wording; reasoning moves it to the feature, like leaving the literal for the figurative, which needs proof. Features compete, and preferring one needs proof. A man told "free this slave of mine" cannot generalise. View 2's proofs: the proof for qiyās covers every text; each report binds until blocked, and so does each feature; human speech differs, since there even a stated cause is not extended ("free this slave, he is black"), while the Lawgiver's stated cause is (the cat). Reasoning does not change the ruling in the text, which still rests on the text; it only reassures the heart. al-Shāfiʿī: the Companions differed over which feature is the cause, which is agreement that only one is; an unknown one cannot be used, so a proof must pick it out. (v2/145–146)
Our proof: texts are of two kinds, caused and not caused. «وَإِنَّمَا نَظِيره مَجْهُول الْحَال إِذا شهد» (v2/147) — "Its likeness is a witness of unknown status": presumed free, but that suffices to defend, not to bind others, like istiṣḥāb. Extending a ruling to branches binds, so it needs proof. (v2/147)
Objection → Reply: "following the Prophet's acts is the default though some were his alone." Reply: he was sent to be followed, and Q 33:21 gives certain proof for it, so his special cases are like specifications of a general. Here the proof is only the feature's suitability, known by opinion; the text is as likely uncaused as caused, like a mujmal, which needs an explanation first. Uncaused texts are the clearer test. (v2/147–148)
Furūʿ test: gold and silver are caused by weight, which al-Shāfiʿī denies. Proof: "hand to hand" requires specification of the items exchanged, and that extends to branches: debt for debt is forbidden; food for food of a different kind needs taking possession in the session (al-Shāfiʿī); we do not allow a specific qafīz of wheat for an unspecified qafīz of barley unreceived in the session; capital in salam must be received in the session. So the text is caused; the cause "being a price" would stop it extending, and a feature that stops extension does not disqualify the text as a witness, like a witness's ignorance, unlike slavery. (v2/148)
Furūʿ test: al-Shāfiʿī treats the wine prohibition as caused with no proof; rather the text shows it is not: "wine is forbidden in itself, and intoxication from every drink". Forbidding other intoxicants is a precaution, not the wine ruling extended: one who holds them lawful is not declared an unbeliever (unlike one who holds wine lawful), and their impurity is not graded like wine's. (v2/149)
How causation is shown: by a text (Q 59:7; Barīra: "you own your person, so choose"); by the text's drift (the ghee with a mouse: solid, remove what is around it; liquid, pour it out, which points to contact with impurity; and the ribā report); by inference from the text's ruling (the mustaḥāḍa: "it is a vein that burst, so make wuḍūʾ for each prayer"); or by agreement among those who accept qiyās. (v2/149)
[Editorial] Debate note: this is a distinctively Ḥanafī gate against "everything is caused". When an opponent extends a text, ask first for the proof that this text is caused now, then which feature.

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B13d.01 · شروط القياس الخمسة · Five conditions: the root's ruling is not special to it by another text; not an exception to qiyās; the reasoning extends the same legal ruling to a like branch with no text; the root's ruling stays as it was; no word of the text is voided (v2/149–151)

Position: «وَهَذِه الشُّرُوط خَمْسَة» (v2/149) — "these conditions are five". (1) The root's ruling is not made special to it by another text; (2) it is not an exception to qiyās; (3) the reasoning extends the very legal ruling fixed by the text to a branch that is its like and has no text; (4) the text's ruling stays in the root after the reasoning as it was before; (5) the reasoning does not void any word of the text. al-Shāfiʿī differs on some of these. (v2/149–151)
Why: (1) extension would cancel the special status, which is qiyās against a text; (2) qiyās itself denies the ruling, and one cannot affirm by a proof of denial; (3) comparison needs two things that are alike, and only legal rulings are known this way ("medicine and language are not known by this qiyās"); (4) qiyās cannot change a text's ruling any more than cancel it; (5) the text comes before qiyās in wording as in meaning. The condition is treated first because legal acts exist only once their conditions exist, as witnesses before marriage and purity before prayer. (v2/149–151)

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B13d.02 · الشرط الأول: ما ثبت خصوصه بالنص · What a text made special is not reasoned from: Khuzayma, the Prophet's marriages, the term in salam, usufructs (v2/151–153)

Furūʿ test: Khuzayma's single testimony, an honour to him alone, is not extended to anyone "like him, below him or above him in merit". The Prophet's nine wives and his marriage without dower are special by text. (v2/151)
Who: al-Shāfiʿī: his special feature was marriage by the word "gift" (Q 33:50), so no one else marries by that word. We say: "exclusively for you" describes the gift itself, i.e. without dower, as "We know what We imposed on them regarding their wives" (Q 33:50) shows (what is imposed is an amount of money, not a form of words); or it means no one may marry his wives after him (Q 33:53). An honour lies where a burden could be felt, and the most eloquent of the Arabs felt none in the words "nikāḥ" and "tazwīj". (v2/151–152)
More: «وَكَذَلِكَ قُلْنَا الْمَنَافِع لَا تضمن بِالْإِتْلَافِ وَالْغَصْب» (v2/152) — "likewise we said usufructs carry no liability on destruction or usurpation". The term in salam is a concession by text ("a known measure, a known weight, to a known term") for one who cannot deliver now, so an immediate salam is not allowed by analogy with sale. There is no liability for usufructs on destruction or usurpation: their value comes only through a contract, a special ruling by text; so is their equivalence with goods in valid and invalid contracts, and a lease binding before they exist, like carrion in famine. (v2/152–153)

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B13d.03 · الشرط الثاني: المعدول به عن القياس · What departs from qiyās is not extended: date-drink wuḍūʾ, laughter in prayer, eating while forgetful, building on prayer after ḥadath, forgetting the tasmiya (v2/153–155)

Furūʿ test: Abū Ḥanīfa: wuḍūʾ with date-drink is not extended to other drinks. Laughter breaks wuḍūʾ in a full prayer, not in the funeral prayer or the prostration of recitation; a fast survives eating while forgetful, but not for one who errs, is forced, or is asleep and has water poured down his throat. (v2/153)
Objection → Reply: "you extended it to intercourse." Reply: the text itself makes eating, drinking and intercourse equal in the fast (its pillar is abstaining from both appetites), so that is by text, not qiyās, like cutting the neck and splitting the belly, both killing. The same holds for chronic incontinence with the mustaḥāḍa, and for building on prayer after any minor ḥadath (the text named vomiting and nosebleed), but not a major one. (v2/153–154)
Objection → Reply: "then the one who errs and the one forced equal the forgetful." Reply: intention does not count in the pillar of fasting (the one unconscious all day fasts; one unconscious from before sunset to the next evening does not); and they are not equal: the one who errs could have guarded against it, while forgetting comes from the One whose right it is ("God fed you and gave you drink"); for the coerced and the sleeper «سَبَب الْعذر جَاءَ من جِهَة الْعباد» (v2/155) — "the cause of the excuse came from people" (the act that breaks the fast is another person's doing), while the right in the fast is God's. Compare the sick man who prays seated (no repeat) with the shackled man (repeats). So Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad: one wounded in prayer does not build on it, unlike one who vomits or bleeds from the nose; and forgetting the tasmiya is not extended to deliberate omission. (v2/154–155)
⚑ Who (ours): some of our colleagues thought every istiḥsān ruling departs from qiyās; «وَلَيْسَ كَمَا ظن» (v2/155) — "it is not as he thought": some are a hidden qiyās. Others of our colleagues thought a text whose meaning is opposed by other meanings cannot be reasoned from; not so, since the root is like a narrator and the feature like a ḥadīth: more narrators give preference, but a single narration still counts. (v2/155) → B13g

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B13d.04 · الشرط الثالث (أ): لا قياس في اللغة ولا فيما لا يتعدى · The third condition, the richest: no legal qiyās to establish names; no reasoning by a cause that does not extend or into another text (v2/155–161)

«وَأما الْفَصْل الثَّالِث فَهُوَ أعظم هَذِه الْوُجُوه فقها وأعمها نفعا» (v2/155) — "The third is the richest in fiqh and the most useful of these": one condition in name, with several principles under it. (v2/155)
Names are not by qiyās: the false oath (al-ghamūs) is not a real oath, so it carries no expiation; reasoning "it is an intended oath by God" is useless, since the question is whether the name applies, which is learned from the language: oaths exist to confirm truth, and where truth is impossible there is no oath. So Abū Ḥanīfa: sodomy is not zinā, so no ḥadd. Likewise drinks other than wine carry no ḥadd for a little that does not intoxicate. (v2/156)
Objection → Reply: "the meaning is linguistic: zinā is spilling seed without seeking offspring; khamr is what clouds the mind." Reply: names for things and acts identify, like personal names, and do not require the meaning in each case; the obsessive who explained every word ("jirjīr, because it moves"; "your beard moves too") shows that doing this is "a kind of madness". Legal names are known to all who know the law, not only to the one reasoning. So the grave-robber is not joined to the thief. Figurative use too follows Arab borrowing, not legal extension: divorce words for manumission, ownership words for marriage, lineage words for manumission, number from the word "divorce", agreement of two witnesses (100 vs 200; one divorce vs half), feeding in expiations (enabling to eat; transfer of ownership is not required, though allowed by the text's indication; unlike clothing). (v2/156–158)
Non-extending cause: «وَالْمذهب عندنَا أَن تَعْلِيل النَّص بِمَا لَا يتَعَدَّى لَا يجوز أصلا» (v2/158) — "Our doctrine: reasoning from a text by what does not extend is not allowed at all." al-Shāfiʿī allows such reasoning, but says it is then not a qiyās (gold and silver "as prices"): for him the ruling in the text rests on the cause, which sometimes extends. His proof: reasoning is a proof like others. Our reply: legal proofs yield knowledge or action; reasoning yields no certain knowledge by agreement (only a kind of knowledge by the apparent, v2/141), so its operative yield is obligatory action in the branch; in the root the text already binds. (v2/158–159)
Objections → Replies: "the root's ruling then rests on the cause." Reply: that would cancel the text's ruling; it stays with the stronger proof, and the root is not judged by the branch. "It restricts the ruling to the root." Reply: the text already did that; a non-extending feature does not bar another that extends; and by agreement the absence of the cause does not mean the absence of the ruling. (v2/160)
No reasoning into another text: Muḥammad in al-Siyar al-kabīr: the fasting substitute in the tamattuʿ-offering text is not extended to the iḥṣār offering, since that has its own text: «وَإِنَّمَا يُقَاس بِالرَّأْيِ على الْمَنْصُوص وَلَا يُقَاس الْمَنْصُوص» (v2/160) — "one reasons by opinion from what has a text; what has a text is not reasoned [on to another text]". al-Shāfiʿī allows it to add to the other text ("added explanation"). We: if it agrees, it adds nothing; if contrary, it is void; if it adds, it changes the other text, and addition is abrogation. (v2/160–161) → B11.08

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B13d.05 · الشرط الثالث (ب): عين الحكم إلى نظيره ولا نص فيه · The same ruling, to a like branch, where there is no text (v2/161–165)

The same ruling: ribā is not reasoned by "food": the text's prohibition ends with equality, while "food" would reach unmeasured foods, where the prohibition would be absolute, a different ruling. So money is not fixed by designation in contracts (against al-Shāfiʿī), since the price is owed and comes to exist by the contract; and the dhimmī's ẓihār is void, since its ruling is a prohibition ended by expiation, and he is not fit for expiation. (v2/161–162)
A like branch: the forgetful faster's excuse is not extended to the one who errs or is forced; the intention required in tayammum is not extended to wuḍūʾ, since tayammum is at root a soiling that does not surely remove ḥadath. (v2/162)
Objections → Replies: expiation for eating in Ramaḍān is not by qiyās, «وَمن أصلنَا أَن إِثْبَات الْكَفَّارَات بِالْقِيَاسِ لَا يجوز» (v2/163) — "it is our principle that expiations are not established by qiyās", but by the text "whoever breaks the fast in Ramaḍān owes what the ẓihār-maker owes", and eating and intercourse are equal in the fast, like arrow and sword in killing; the opponent's extension to intercourse with a corpse or an animal is the real extension, and void. In-law prohibition by zinā: the root is the child who unites the two waters; intercourse in the procreative place ("the place of tillage", v2/164) stands in for it, lawful or not. This substitution works for what rests on caution, the prohibition; «وَالنّسب لَيْسَ بنظيره فِي معنى الِاحْتِيَاط» (v2/164) — "lineage is not its like in caution", so intercourse as such does not stand in for the real cause in establishing lineage. It does not reach sisters and aunts, since the text does not. Ownership through usurpation is a condition of the liability, not the usurpation's ruling. (v2/163–164)
No text in the branch: no expiation for deliberate killing by analogy with the mistaken, nor blood-money in pure deliberate killing; no expiation for the false oath; no faith required in recipients of charity other than zakāt; no faith required in the slave of the ẓihār and oath expiations by analogy with killing, since unqualified is not qualified (compare the stepdaughters, qualified by consummation). (v2/164–165) → B11.08

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B13d.06 · الشرط الرابع: بقاء حكم النص · The text's ruling must stay as it was: the testimony of one given the qadhf ḥadd, the fāsiq, liʿān; six objections answered (v2/165–170)

Furūʿ test: we do not reason to accept «شَهَادَة الْمَحْدُود فِي الْقَذْف بعد التَّوْبَة» (v2/165) — "the testimony of one given the qadhf ḥadd, after repentance" by analogy with those punished for other crimes, since his permanent loss of testimony completes his ḥadd by text. That permanent loss is a consequence of the ḥadd, not of the accusation; al-Shāfiʿī's voiding his testimony by the accusation itself ignores the text's period, after the accusation, for bringing four witnesses; voiding the fāsiq's testimony outright ends the text's "suspension"; the husband's liʿān alone does not separate the couple, since the text makes liʿān mutual, and separation comes by the qāḍī's ruling once decent keeping has become impossible; if the husband retracts and is flogged, he may remarry her after the separation, since the text bars two parties to liʿān, and he is no longer one. (v2/165–167)
Objection: "you did it yourselves": small amounts of wheat; the sheep in zakāt replaced by value; zakāt paid to one category; ten poor fed as one poor man over ten days; opening the prayer without "Allāhu akbar"; washing impurity with liquids other than water. (v2/167)
Replies: (1) small amounts were excluded by the text's own exception ("except like for like"): the excepted state is equality in measure, which exists only in measured amounts (the Jāmiʿ oath cases show the excepted governs the kind excluded). (2) Zakāt (the sheep and the categories) is purely God's right, not the poor's; paying from a named property to many needs implies permission to substitute, like a ruler's gifts paid from one property he names, and «وَالثَّابِت بضرورة النَّص كَالثَّابِتِ بِالنَّصِّ» (v2/168) — "what is established by the text's necessity is like what is established by the text", so substitution is by text alongside the reasoning. What the text rules is the property's eligibility (maḥall) to meet the poor man's need, a legal ruling like wine's unfitness for sale; sadaqa is like used water ("God disliked for you the washings of people's hands"). «فَعرفنَا أَن حكم النَّص صَلَاحِية الْمحل للصرف إِلَى كِفَايَة الْفَقِير» (v2/169) — "so we know the text's ruling is the property's fitness to be paid toward the poor man's sufficiency"; that stays after the reasoning as before and extends to other property. The lām in "for the poor" (Q 9:60) marks where it ends up; each category is like part of the Kaʿba, and paying to one category is by the text's indication, «لَا بطرِيق التَّعْلِيل» (v2/169) — "not by way of reasoning". (3) The ten poor: the aim is meeting ten needs, and need renews daily. (4) The text requires glorifying God by the tongue; takbīr is one fit tool. (5) What is due is removing impurity; any liquid that can be wrung out does that. (v2/167–170)
Limits: not wuḍūʾ with other liquids, since ḥadath is no impurity and its removal by water is not understood; yet wuḍūʾ needs no intention, since water's removing is understood. «فَعلم أَن هَذِه الْحُدُود إِنَّمَا يقف الْمَرْء عَلَيْهَا عِنْد التَّأَمُّل عَن إنصاف» (v2/170) — "these limits are grasped only by fair-minded reflection." (v2/170)

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B13d.07 · الشرط الخامس وما لا مدخل للقياس فيه · No voiding a word of the text: the five harmful animals, "and the excess is ribā", "ever"; and questions qiyās cannot reach (v2/170–174)

Furūʿ test: other predators are not added to the "five" killed in and out of the Ḥaram, which would void the number; the ribā ḥadīth names no number. al-Shāfiʿī's "food" cause voids "and the excess is ribā" (for him the sale is void at root until equality). His "sinfulness" cause voids "ever" (Q 24:4), since rejection for sinfulness ends with repentance. (v2/170–171)
Questions of wording, not qiyās: vowing to fast on the Day of Sacrifice, praying ẓuhr in town on Friday before the Jumuʿa, a sale void for ribā: all turn on what a prohibition requires, learned from the language. The husband's ownership in marriage is a necessity against qiyās with no like; the pledge gives a hand of collection, as surety gives a right to demand. (v2/170–173)
The denier's proof is not the claimant's: divorce reaching a woman in ʿidda after final separation; marrying her sister in that ʿidda; salam of Marw cloth in Marw cloth; "a final divorce" ending the right of return; a lease's price owed at once like a sale. In each, the opponent's analogy assumes the point in dispute, or the two are not alike. «وَبِهَذَا تبين أَن حجَّة الْمُدَّعِي الْمُثبت غير حجَّة الْمُنكر النَّافِي» (v2/173) — "this shows that the proof of the one affirming is not the proof of the one denying": the denier says the ruling is not legislated, and what is not legislated cannot be established by legal qiyās. (v2/172–174)
Back to the first condition: "eat it, you and your family", said to the Bedouin in the expiation ḥadīth, was his alone, an honour; reasoning from it to others leads to saying the expiation was abrogated. (v2/174)
[Editorial] Debate note: the five conditions are the checklist a Ḥanafī uses to block an analogy: the root is special, exceptional, not the same ruling or not alike, changed by the reasoning, or a word is voided. Most furūʿ here are disputes with al-Shāfiʿī as Sarakhsī frames them; the conditions, not the furūʿ, are what the debate turns on.

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B13e.01 · ركن القياس · The pillar is the feature, among the text's features, made a sign of the ruling, by which the branch becomes like the root; it may be inherent, incidental, a name, a ruling; single, paired or several; in the text or outside it (v2/174–176)

Position: the pillar is the feature made a sign of the ruling «من بَين الْأَوْصَاف الَّتِي يشْتَمل عَلَيْهَا اسْم النَّص وَيكون الْفَرْع بِهِ نظيرا للْأَصْل فِي الحكم الثَّابِت بِاعْتِبَارِهِ فِي الْفَرْع» (v2/174) — "from among the features the text's name includes, by which the branch becomes like the root in the ruling that it establishes in the branch"; «لِأَن ركن الشَّيْء مَا يقوم بِهِ ذَلِك الشَّيْء» — "since a thing's pillar is what it stands by". (v2/174)
Kinds: inherent (being a price, in gold and silver: our zakāt on jewellery; their ribā cause); incidental or a name ("it is the blood of a vein that burst": "blood" a name, "burst" incidental; measure and weight, which vary with custom); a ruling ("if your father owed a debt…": a debt is a ruling in the dhimma; the mudabbar's sale: his freedom is tied to death as such). Single (one of genus, measure or weight for delayed exchange), paired (measure with genus for excess), or several (predators' leftover water: an animal forbidden to eat, not for honour, with no general hardship); several count only when none works alone. In the text, or outside it by implication: the salam concession is caused by the seller's lack; the runaway slave and gharar sales by inability to deliver or ignorance leading to dispute; al-Shāfiʿī on the slave woman over a free wife; our cause for the Day of Sacrifice fast (refusing God's hospitality). (v2/174–176)
Agreed: not all the features are the cause, and not each one; the one reasoning may not pick one without proof, since claiming a cause is like claiming a ruling. (v2/176)

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B13e.02 · دليل صحة العلة · What shows a feature is the cause: the Ṭard school says co-occurrence (and co-absence); the jurists say suitability then uprightness, as a witness needs fitness and then uprightness, and ours prove uprightness by effect (athar) (v2/176–178)

Who: the people of ṭard (concomitance): co-occurrence alone, with no understood meaning; some add co-absence, with the text's named thing present in both states and inert; some require turning with it, present and absent. Sarakhsī: the "present and inert" condition "ruins qiyās, it does not validate it". (v2/176)
The jurists: «انعدام الحكم عِنْد عدم الْعلَّة لَا يكون دَلِيل صِحَة الْعلَّة» (v2/176) — "the ruling's absence when the cause is absent does not show the cause is valid", and its presence when the cause is absent does not show it is invalid. The proof is suitability, then uprightness, like a witness: fit, then shown upright, then using the word "I testify". (v2/176–177)
Suitability (agreed with al-Shāfiʿī): fitting with the causes transmitted from the Prophet and the Companions, not far from their way of reasoning. (v2/177)
Uprightness: our scholars: «عَدَالَة الْعلَّة تعرف بأثرها» (v2/177) — "a cause's uprightness is known by its effect": once it is effective in the ruling, it is upright. Before that it may be acted on but need not, like the unexamined (mastūr) witness (a qāḍī's ruling on him stands); without suitability it may not be acted on at all. al-Shāfiʿī's followers: some, by its being "suggestive" (mukhīl: striking the heart as sound), with testing against the roots only a precaution; others, by testing against the roots with no root opposing it, at least two, like two character witnesses. On the first group's account, testing is precaution, a counter-case (naqḍ) is a wound, and an opposing cause (muʿāraḍa) is a defence. (v2/177)

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B13e.03 · الرد على أهل الطرد والإخالة · Co-occurrence fails because a condition also turns with the ruling; "suggestiveness" is private opinion; testing against the roots is only more witnesses; effect is shown in the salaf's own reasoning (v2/178–187)

Ṭard's case: the qiyās verses do not single out a cause; legal causes are signs, and a sign is what is present when the thing is; the Lawgiver may attach rulings to names without meaning. Some add: a cause changes the prior state, and co-absence shows the link is not chance (wuḍūʾ turns on ḥadath, not on standing to pray; the angry judge, on the preoccupied heart; wheat, on excess by measure). (v2/178–179)
Reply: if every feature could be the cause, the one reasoning would be lost and there would be no test; the jurists alone reason by qiyās, which shows the cause has a meaning found only by fiqh. "Signs" is true in that they do not cause by themselves, but a sign must be picked out, by a text or by opinion, and opinion needs a meaning to grasp. Unexplained texts bind by themselves; a feature does not. (v2/179)
Co-occurrence is not proof: a ruling also turns with a condition ("if you enter the house you are free"), and no one calls entering the cause; if "the default is turning with the cause, a condition is incidental", then signs are only what the Law ties the ruling to, and a condition too is so tied, so a mere possibility cannot establish a cause. "Presence with the text inert" is a mistake: reasoning exists to extend a text, so the text must keep its ruling; in the wuḍūʾ verse ḥadath is not the cause: purity from it is a condition of standing to pray ("while in ḥadath", the elided word shown by Q 5:6's other clauses), so ḥadath is a condition of wuḍūʾ's obligation, known by the text's indication, not by reasoning; the angry judge is known by consensus, and wheat by the text "measure for measure". The ruling's absence with the cause's absence is the original non-existence, not the cause's effect. A ruling can stand on several causes, so its presence without one proves nothing; and every party in the ribā dispute can show co-occurrence for his cause, and so could one who made "strength and bitterness" the cause of unbelief for calling wine lawful. (v2/180–182)
Objection → Reply: "your effective cause also turns with the ruling." Reply: yes, but we do not make the turning the proof; effect in the roots is the proof. (v2/182)
The "suggestive" group: like searching for the qibla, and "consult your heart" (Wābiṣa); a witness is different, since he can betray. The "testing" group: suggestiveness is inward and binds no opponent; testing against the roots is like the Prophet's silence in his life; a lasting contradiction or opposition cannot exist among legal proofs (Q 4:82); two roots suffice, as two character witnesses do. Testing against all the roots is not required, contrary, on the more natural reading, to what some (the witness reads "some of our shaykhs and his") held, since whoever requires it cannot avoid acting without proof: however exhaustive his testing, the opponent can say another root lies beyond it that contradicts or opposes. (v2/183–185; the v2/184 seam is paraphrased from the ʿIlmiyya witness, not quoted)
Our case: what is not sensed is known by its effect, as a witness's uprightness by his religion's effect in holding him back, and the Maker by His works. What makes a suitable feature proof is its effect appearing in the roots: in a case other than the disputed one, agreeing with the transmitted causes. «فَأَما الإخالة فَهُوَ عبارَة عَن مُجَرّد الظَّن» (v2/185) — "suggestiveness is mere conjecture"; at best it is like inspiration (ilhām), which binds no one else, as one man's qibla search does not bind his companions, and anyone can claim it. Concomitance across roots is like a witness testifying often, which does not make him upright; roots are witnesses, not character witnesses, and know nothing of the feature. The Qurʾān's miracle lay in being beyond human power, not in "no one answered". (v2/185–186)
Effect is knowable: in sensed things by sense (a footprint, a wound, a laxative), in reasoned things by language, and in legal causes by the Prophet's, the Companions' and the early jurists' reasoning: the cat ("those who go around": hardship lifts impurity, as necessity lifts prohibition, Q 2:173); the mustaḥāḍa (blood reaching where it must be cleaned; "it is not menstruation" was already said, so "a vein" adds a cause); ʿUmar's kiss (rinsing: appetite is fulfilled by what reaches the throat, not the mouth); the Khathʿamī woman; zakāt barred to Banū Hāshim ("would you drink rinse water?"); the grandfather (valley and river; Ibn ʿAbbās: "Zayd makes the grandson a son but not the grandfather a father"); ʿUmar on the cooked grape juice (wine turned vinegar). (v2/186–188)

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B13e.04 · المؤثر في الفقه · The imams reasoned by effective features, and so do we in disputed questions; such reasoning is still qiyās even when the root goes unnamed (v2/188–192)

The imams: Muḥammad on the triple-divorce oath (the whole of a thing cannot be repeated, so nothing of the penalty is left); Abū Ḥanīfa on buying one's relative with another (the partner consented to the cause of freedom); Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad on the child depositary who destroys (the owner enabled him); even al-Shāfiʿī: zinā does not create in-law prohibition ("a deed you are stoned for" vs "a deed you are praised for"), and marriage is not proved by women with men ("marriage is not property"). (v2/188–189)
In disputed questions: repeating the head-wipe is not sunna, «إِنَّه مسح فَلَا يسن تكراره» (v2/189) — "it is a wiping, so repeating it is not sunna" (pointing to lightening; the opponent's "it is a pillar" points to nothing that separates; al-Shāfiʿī is named only in bracketed editor's text); the Ramaḍān fast counts with an unqualified intention ("an only fast", so no need to specify); a first-time pilgrim (ṣarūra; both witnesses print الضرورة) who performs ḥajj intending it as voluntary does not thereby discharge the obligatory ḥajj (it is done by its pillars, not its time); the father marries off a young previously married girl ("she is young"), and not an adult virgin without consent ("she is adult"): the effect of youth and adulthood appears in guardianship everywhere, not of virginity. (v2/189–191)
Objection → Reply: "qiyās needs a root; naming a feature is not qiyās." ⚑ Some of our shaykhs: with the root named it is qiyās, without it an inference from a cause, like the opponent's (al-Shāfiʿī's) non-extending cause. «وَالأَصَح عِنْدِي أَن نقُول هُوَ قِيَاس على كل حَال» (v2/191) — "The soundest to me: it is qiyās in every case", since such a feature always has a root, left unnamed when obvious (the child depositary, like one who permits a child to eat) and named when not (a free man able to marry a free woman may still marry a slave woman: "every marriage valid for a slave with his master's leave is valid for a free man"; a Muslim may marry a scriptuary slave woman, "like a free woman"). Both are bounded by the halving of lawfulness: the slave woman is lawful on her own but forbidden when joined to a free wife, «فَلَا يَتَزَوَّجهَا على حرَّة ويتزوجها إِذا لم يكن تَحْتَهُ حرَّة» (v2/192) — "so he does not marry her on top of a free wife, and marries her when he has no free wife". (v2/191–192)

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B13f.01 · حكم القياس · The ruling of qiyās is extension to a branch without a text, not tying the ruling in the text to the cause, against al-Shāfiʿī (v2/192–193)

Position: «حكم الْعلَّة الَّتِي نسميها قِيَاسا أَو عِلّة ثَابِتَة بِالرَّأْيِ تَعديَة حكم النَّص بهَا إِلَى فرع لَا نَص فِيهِ عندنَا» (v2/192) — "The ruling of the cause we call qiyās, or a cause established by opinion, is, in our view, extending the text's ruling by it to a branch that has no text." al-Shāfiʿī: its ruling is the tie of the root's ruling to it; extension is allowed, not required. (v2/192) → B13d.04
His case: like rational causes, where existence depends on the cause; like stated causes (the causes of ḥadd and expiation bind without extension). (v2/192)
Our proof: it works only after the text ("if you do not find it in the Book and Sunna", Muʿādh), so it has no work where a text is; tying the root's ruling to it would cancel, or at least change, the text's ruling by excluding the other features; a cause is what changes the state, and in the root nothing changes. Like ḥawāla, which moves a debt and does not create one. (v2/192–193)

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B13f.02 · مواضع القياس · Qiyās has no place in establishing or denying a cause, a condition or a ruling from the start, or their attributes; only in whether an agreed ruling extends beyond its text (v2/193–199)

«وَمن فهم هَذَا سقط عَنهُ مُؤنَة الْحِفْظ فِي ثَلَاثَة أَربَاع مَا يسْتَعْمل النَّاس الْقيَاس فِيهِ» (v2/193) — "Whoever understands this is spared the labour of memorising three quarters of what people use qiyās in." Four kinds: the cause and its attribute; the condition and its attribute; the ruling and its attribute; an agreed ruling, whether it stays in its text or extends. Qiyās works only in the fourth. In the first three it neither affirms nor denies, since causes, conditions and rulings are set by the Lawgiver and known by hearing; and a denier claims "not legislated", which no legal proof can show, or abrogation, which opinion cannot establish. (v2/193–194)
Causes: does genus alone forbid delay? (by the text and its indication: a stipulated delay suggests an excess without counter-value, and a suspicion counts where caution rules; compare the ruling of witr, established by Abū Ḥanīfa by the text "God has added a prayer for you", not by qiyās); does travel drop half the prayer? ("a charity God gave you"); does the khuff stop ḥadath reaching the feet? ("I put them in while pure"); does Islam alone, without protection by the Abode, give life and property legal value (taqawwum), making them compensable? does a single report give knowledge? is qiyās binding? Their attributes: the nisāb with growth; the oath "intended" or "concluded"; the unlawful killing; the fast-breaking expiation. (v2/194–196)
Conditions: witnesses for marriage; tasmiya for slaughter; sound-minded adulthood for God's financial rights and financial penalties; the call reaching unbelievers; the guardian in marriage (but a woman's authority over herself may be reasoned from the man's, since its meaning is understood and agreed). Attributes: witnesses' uprightness and maleness; continuity, order and intention in wuḍūʾ. (v2/196–197)
Objection → Reply: "you reasoned on taking possession in food-for-food sales (Muḥammad: 'present, with no term')." Reply: there each side has an agreed root (food for dirhams; currency exchange), so qiyās is in place; the opponent has no root on tasmiya (for the forgetful, the text treats him as having said it) or on marriage without witnesses (the sale root only shows marriage as a transaction, which we grant; the condition comes from marriage's weight and purpose, which has no like). (v2/196–197)
Rulings and attributes: is one rakʿa a prayer? is reciting in the last two rakʿas obligatory? is the Fātiḥa a pillar? wiping on khuffs, overshoes or turban? The attributes of ṣadaqat al-fiṭr, the sacrifice, witr, the "final" divorce, marital ownership, divorce (permitted at root or disliked), the session in sale, the pledge. (v2/197–198)
The fourth kind: repeating the head-wipe (a wiping not repeated vs washed limbs repeated: qiyās from both sides, then preference); specifying the intention in a fast (the voluntary fast vs the make-up fast). The Day of Sacrifice fast: we reasoned that fasting is legislated in it from other days; whether the prohibition voids it is known from what prohibition requires, not by opinion. (v2/198–199) → B3
Method: «فَالَّذِي يحِق على السَّائِل أَن ينظر أَولا أَن الْمُتَنَازع فِيهِ هَل هُوَ مَحل لَهُ» (v2/199) — "the questioner must first look whether the disputed question is a place for it", and whether the cause extends; if not, he should not attack the cause but show by fiqh that the reasoning is out of place. (v2/199)
[Editorial] Debate note: B13f.02 is the most practical page in the chapter for debate. Before answering an analogy, ask which of the four kinds the question belongs to; if it is about a cause, condition or ruling from the start, the analogy is out of place, by Sarakhsī's rule.

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B13g.01 · الاستحسان · Istiḥsān is not following desire: it is either judging amounts left to opinion, or the stronger of two proofs, overriding the obvious qiyās (v2/199–201)

Who: some jurist wrote against "we left qiyās and preferred": leaving a legal proof for desire, or naming a void proof; Sarakhsī says some of it shows "little shame, little scruple and much rashness". (v2/199–200)
Position: in language, finding a thing good, or seeking the best to follow (Q 39:18). Istiḥsān and qiyās both fall within the fourth kind of B13f.02. For the jurists, two kinds: (1) judging by ijtihād amounts the Law left to our opinion (the gift to a divorcee "in kindness", Q 2:236; maintenance "in kindness", Q 2:233), which no jurist opposes; (2) «الدَّلِيل الَّذِي يكون مُعَارضا للْقِيَاس الظَّاهِر الَّذِي تسبق إِلَيْهِ الأوهام قبل إنعام التَّأَمُّل فِيهِ» (v2/200) — "the proof that opposes the obvious qiyās which the mind leaps to before reflecting fully"; after reflection the opposing proof is stronger, so acting on it is required. The name marks the difference, like the grammarians' names for kinds of accusative or the prosodists' names for metres. (v2/199–201)
Reply: preferring the stronger proof is not desire; al-Shāfiʿī says "I consider it recommended" (astaḥibbu) in like cases, and even «أستحسن فِي الْمُتْعَة ثَلَاثِينَ درهما» (v2/207) — "I prefer thirty dirhams for the divorcee's gift". The Prophet's "what the Muslims see as good is good with God" and Ibn Masʿūd and Mālik used the word. (v2/201, 207)

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B13g.02 · ترك القياس أصلا · Where istiḥsān is taken, qiyās is dropped entirely, not merely outweighed; it is left by text, consensus or necessity (v2/201–203)

⚑ Who (ours): «وَظن بعض الْمُتَأَخِّرين من أَصْحَابنَا» (v2/201) — "some later scholars of our school thought" acting on istiḥsān is better while qiyās remains allowed, like an effective cause over mere concomitance. Sarakhsī: «وَهَذَا وهم عِنْدِي» — "this is a mistake, in my view": the books say "we left this qiyās", and what is left may not be acted on; and "I find it ugly", which of a valid proof would be unbelief. (v2/201)
Proof from the furūʿ: a gang loads stolen goods on one man's back: qiyās cuts only the carrier, istiḥsān all; zinā witnesses differ over two corners of one room: qiyās no ḥadd, istiḥsān ḥadd; Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad validate a boy's apostasy by istiḥsān. If the qiyās still stood, it would be a doubt barring the ḥadd, and the proof for Islam would win. They are called "two conflicting proofs" by their original status, not because they conflict in one place. The divorce hanging on her menstruation: qiyās, not believed (a condition like entering the house); istiḥsān, believed (only she knows; Q 2:228 forbids concealing; Ubayy: "the woman is trusted with what is in her womb"). (v2/201–202)
Three grounds for leaving qiyās: text (Abū Ḥanīfa on eating while forgetful: "were it not for what people report, I would say he makes it up", like ʿUmar's "we nearly ruled by our opinion where there is a report"; salam); consensus (commissioned manufacture, by practice since the Prophet); necessity (purifying wells, pools and garments washed in tubs; leases). Text or consensus fixes the error in the qiyās, so it must be left. (v2/202–203)

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B13g.03 · القياس والاستحسان نوعان · Each is of two kinds; preference goes by strength of effect, not by being obvious or hidden; a hidden-qiyās istiḥsān extends, one based on text or consensus does not (v2/203–208)

Kinds: qiyās: obvious with weak effect, or outwardly weak with hidden strong effect; istiḥsān: hidden with strong effect, or outwardly effective with hidden flaw. «وَإِنَّمَا يكون التَّرْجِيح بِقُوَّة الْأَثر لَا بالظهور وَلَا بالخفاء» (v2/203) — "preference is only by strength of effect, not by being obvious or hidden", as the Hereafter outweighs this world. (v2/203–204)
Istiḥsān wins: birds of prey's leftover water is clean: they drink with a dry bone beak, not a wet tongue from forbidden flesh, and the hardship of the cat applies. So istiḥsān is not specifying a cause: the cause (wet impurity one can avoid without hardship) is simply absent. (v2/204)
Qiyās wins (rare in the books): bowing instead of the recitation prostration at a sūra's end counts inside prayer (the aim is humility, and there bowing is worship); a salam dispute over cloth size requires both oaths (a described item of other size is another item); two men each proving a pledge of the same thing: both proofs fail (each claims his own sole hand). (v2/204–206)
Extension: a hidden-qiyās istiḥsān is qiyās, so it extends: mutual oaths when price is disputed before delivery extend to leases, marriage (Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad), heirs, and a destroyed item that left a substitute; after delivery, mutual oaths while the item still exists rest on the text (or consensus) against qiyās («عِنْد قيام السّلْعَة», v2/207) and do not extend, so once the item is destroyed there are no mutual oaths, «سَوَاء أخلف بَدَلا أَو لم يخلف» (v2/207) — "whether or not it left a substitute". Where the qiyās is itself built on a text-based exception (the sleeper who has a wet dream in prayer is not like one whose minor ḥadath came on him), istiḥsān always wins, as a return to the base qiyās. (v2/206–207)
The bath at a fixed price: qiyās voids it for ignorance, but ignorance voids only when it leads to dispute; so the ruling is absent because the cause is. (v2/207–208)

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B13h.01 · لا تخصيص في العلل الشرعية · A legal cause cannot be "specified": if the ruling fails where the feature exists, the cause itself is absent there or was never the cause; allowing specification leans to Muʿtazilī doctrine (v2/208–215)

Who: the ṭard people say defenders of effective causes must allow specification. ⚑ «وَزعم بعض أَصْحَابنَا أَن التَّخْصِيص فِي الْعِلَل الشَّرْعِيَّة جَائِز» (v2/208) — "some of our colleagues claimed specification of legal causes is allowed"; they claimed it contradicts neither the salaf's way nor Ahl al-Sunna. Sarakhsī: «وَذَلِكَ خطأ عَظِيم من قَائِله» — "that is a great error by its holder": the approved salaf forbid it, and whoever allows it opposes Ahl al-Sunna and inclines to the Muʿtazila's roots. Specification means: faced with a case where his cause yields the opposite, the reasoner says "my cause requires this, but an obstacle appeared", as with a general text. (v2/208)
Their case: specification is not contradiction in language (breaking vs not including), in the Sunna (texts are specified, never contradictory), or by consensus (qiyās is left for text, consensus or necessity yet binds elsewhere); in reason, a failure may come from an obstacle, as with zakāt before the year passes or sale with an option; but the claimant must show the obstacle. Their five obstacles: to the cause's origin, its completion, the ruling's start, its completion, its bindingness (the arrow: bowstring snaps, arrow deflected, shield, wound healed, a bedridden illness that drags on until death from it is no longer feared, after which he counts as healthy in his dispositions; sale of a free man, of another's property, with the seller's option, the option of sight, the option of defect). (v2/208–210)
Our proofs: Q 6:143–144: the idolaters were silenced when asked for their cause, which only works if a cause cannot be "specified" ("tell me with knowledge"). A cause's ruling is extension, so an obstacle that could block one branch could block all, leaving a cause with no extension; the obstacle must be as strong as the cause, and then the two contradict. Specification in texts is like abrogation in form and exception in effect; neither exists for causes. Allowing it makes every mujtahid right and ijtihād certain, which implies the obligation of the optimal (wujūb al-aṣlaḥ), the intermediate position and eternal hell for grave sinners who die unrepentant. (v2/210–212)
Position: a ruling fails only when a feature is added or missing, which changes the cause: «وَعدم الحكم عِنْد انعدام الْعلَّة لَا يكون من تَخْصِيص الْعلَّة فِي شَيْء» (v2/212) — "the ruling's absence when the cause is absent is not specification of the cause at all." Zakāt's cause is the growing nisāb over a year ("no zakāt in wealth until a year passes"), and advance payment is permitted by a different cause; sale with an option is not an unqualified sale. (v2/212–213)
Furūʿ test: istiḥsān by text, consensus or necessity removes the cause, since opinion counts nothing against a text. ⚑ Zufar: water poured into a sleeper's throat does not break the fast (like the forgetful); we: it does, since the forgetful's act is legally dropped ("God fed you"), while the sleeper's comes from people. The usurper owns the thing when liability is fixed, but not the mudabbar, whose value is not a substitute for him. In-law prohibition by zinā does not reach sisters and aunts, since the text names only mothers, daughters, fathers and sons; nor does the woman become forbidden to the man himself. (v2/213–215)
«وَهَذَا أصل كَبِير وَفقه عَظِيم» (v2/215) — "this is a great root and great fiqh": a general text is not voided by a specific one; a cause, which may be flawed, is treated as absent where something changes it. (v2/215)
[Editorial] Debate note: B13g and B13h answer the objection to istiḥsān reported at v2/199–200: Sarakhsī's istiḥsān is either a text, consensus or necessity, or a stronger hidden qiyās, and he denies that it "specifies" a cause. A debater should know that some Ḥanafīs did allow specification (⚑ B13h.01) and that Sarakhsī calls it a great error.

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