86   CONSENSUS AND DISAGREEMENT  

natural assumption that the consensus was not subject to error: 'Whenever I find a generation of scholars at a seat of knowledge, in their majority, holding the same opinion, I call this "consensus", whether their predecessors agreed or disagreed with it, because the majority would not agree on anything in ignorance of the doctrine of their predecessors, and would abandon the previous doctrine only on account of a repeal or because they knew of some better argument, even if they did not mention it.' Shāfi'ī calls this an unfounded assumption (tawahhum) and points out that their successors would then also be free to diverge from them without mentioning their argument. This means, he says, leaving the decision always to the last generation: a point his opponents must concede if they are not to set themselves up as the only standard of knowledge. But this they could hardly do without making the same concession to scholars elsewhere. This is a fair, though polemical, summing-up of the attitude of the Iraqians.

The first external justification of the principle of consensus occurs in Muw. Shaib. 140, where Shaibānī says with regard to a particular decision: 'The Muslims are agreed on this and approve of it, and it is related on the authority of the Prophet that everything of which the Muslims approve or disapprove, is good or bad in the sight of Allah.' This informal tradition, still without an isnad, was no doubt relatively recent in the time of Shaibānī.¹

The consensus of the Iraqians is originally just as anonymous as that of the Medinese (Ris. 73); it represents the average opinion, and the Iraqians take as little account of the views of minorities as the Medinese do (Ikh. 119). Now Shaibānī, who in Muw. Shaib. constantly refers to 'the opinion of Abū Ḥanīfa and of our scholars in general', gives in Athar Shaib. a collection of decisions given and traditions transmitted by Ibrahim Nakha'ī, together with the opinions of Abū Ḥanīfa. Athar A.Y. is a largely coextensive collection of Ibrahim's alleged opinions and traditions, made by Abū Yūsuf. We must therefore conclude that Abū Ḥanīfa, Abū Yūsuf, Shaibānī, and their companions found the consensus, as their group understood it, represented by the body of doctrine associated with the name.