The Science of the Principles of Jurisprudence

al-Rāzī — and in it are perplexities and raisings of doubt which ought not to be listened to, for they bewilder and sicken and bring to ruin, and they slake no thirst. (1) We ask God Most High for soundness. The sayings of the forebears in exegesis are fine, but they run to three opinions and more, so that the truth is lost among them; (2) for the truth is not on two sides at once, though a wording may well bear two meanings.

( The Science of the Roots of Jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) )

You have no need of the roots of jurisprudence, O follower of authority, and you who claim that independent judgement (ijtihād) has been cut off and that no one capable of it is left. (3) And there is no profit in the roots of jurisprudence unless the one who masters it become

— Notes —

[20] (1) Al-Rāzī has laid the scholars of the community under a great obligation by what he has immortalized in his book of citations from commentaries that the Islamic world has lost — even if there is in his commentary something to be taken exception to. He pours himself out, in investigations that touch upon the rational, with the copiousness of a master; and seldom is his like to be found among the speculative thinkers in fairness toward adversaries: he exhausts his utmost in setting out their views as they truly are, and in arguing for them with what may not have come easily to themselves, so that the discourse upon it grows long — and then, when he takes to refuting them, a slackness may come over him before the discourse is complete, so that things remain which he has not demolished in that place, though he may have demolished them in another place in his book. And al-Dhahabī is one whose breast is not wide enough for investigations that pass beyond the bound of transmission and enter within the rational and the understanding of it.

[20] (2) Al-Najm al-Ṭūfī mentions, in al-Iksīr fī qawāʻid al-tafsīr, a universal probe by which the differing opinions in exegesis-by-transmission may be tested, so that one may learn by it the way of extrication from them; and it is among his fine and consistently applicable innovations. And the general rules upon conflict of evidence and upon preference are among the things of use in this connection.

[20] (3) The gate of independent judgement stands open to those fit for it, both its leaves wide, for all time — and shut