SUNNA, 'PRACTICE' AND 'LIVING TRADITION' 59

Regulations of the Umayyad government. In contrast to Shafi'i, however, he did not fall back on traditions from the Prophet but drew the contrary conclusion that the Caliph was free to fix and codify the alleged sunna.¹

The early texts contain numerous traces of the process by which traditions from the Prophet imposed themselves on the old idea of sunna and thereby prepared the ground for Shafi'i's identification of sunna with them. In the time of Shafi'i, traditions from the Prophet, particularly 'isolated' ones, were still felt to be something recent which disturbed the 'living tradition' of doctrine in the ancient schools. In Ikh. 284, the Iraqian opponent points out that Shafi'i's reasoning, which starts from traditions, is new compared with that of Shafi'i's companions, the Medinese, who base themselves on practice. Shafi'i replies: 'I have told you before that practice means nothing, and we cannot be held responsible for what others say; so stop arguing about it.'

Similarly, in Tr. III, 148 (p. 243), Shafi'i addresses a Basrian opponent: 'If you answered consistently with your principle, you ought to hold that men are obliged to act, not according to what is related from the Prophet, but according to a corresponding practice or lack of practice after him.' The opponent replies: 'I do not hold that.' But this refers only to the negative consequence which Shafi'i forces on him, as appears from his further reply: 'There can be no sunna of the Prophet on which the Caliphs have not acted after him.'

In Ris. 58, commenting on a tradition which makes 'Umar change his decision when a decision of the Prophet to the contrary became known to him, Shafi'i says: 'A tradition from the Prophet must be accepted as soon as it becomes known, even if it is not supported by any corresponding action of a Caliph. If there has been an action on the part of a Caliph and a tradition from the Prophet to the contrary becomes known later, that action must be discarded in favour of the tradition from the Prophet. A tradition from the Prophet derives its authority from itself and not from the action of a later authority. The Muslims [when informed of a tradition from the Prophet] did not make the objection that 'Umar had acted differently in the midst of the Companions.'² The opponent acknowledges that if this were correct, it would prove that the sunna, in Shafi'i's sense, superseded all contrary practice, that one could not pretend that the validity of the sunna required confirmation by evidence of its subsequent application, and that nothing contradictory to the sunna could affect it in any way.³ This shows what the actual doctrine of the opponents is.