TRADITIONS IN THE ANCIENT SCHOOLS OF LAW 31

'Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud. Shafi‘i collects the points on which the Iraqians diverge from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud, in Tr. II.

The role of ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud as Iraqian authorities is discussed in Ikh. 215 f., a passage which contains a rather one-sided, but from Shafi‘i’s point of view logical, summary of the attitude of the ancient schools of law to their eponyms. The Iraqian opponent states that Ibrahim Nakha‘i disapproved of a tradition from the Prophet and said: ‘Should Wa’il [the transmitter] be more knowledgeable than ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud?'¹ He then acknowledges that Ibrahim did not relate from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud that they saw the Prophet act differently from what Wa’il related, but Ibrahim supposed that had they seen him act as related by Wa’il, they would have transmitted it or acted upon it. He is forced to admit that Ibrahim transmitted no explicit statement from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud, and concedes that Ibrahim could not have been aware of all their traditions and actions. He also concedes that not all decisions of Ibrahim went back to ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud. Therefore, Shafi‘i concludes, the opponent has no right to draw conclusions from Ibrahim’s general reference to ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud, because Ibrahim and others sometimes followed other authorities on points on which these two were silent. Even if Ibrahim related something from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud, it would not be acceptable because he was not in direct contact with them, and now, Shafi‘i says, the opponent wants to invalidate Wa’il’s tradition from the Prophet on the ground that Ibrahim did not know the opinion of ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud on that point. If the opponent, as he does, claims that Ibrahim may have had positive information, this does not better his argument because, in fact, he did not transmit it. And if he means that Ibrahim’s hearers presumed that he transmitted it from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud without saying so, we might as well presume on all points on which nothing is related from him, that he knew [and therefore shared] the correct decision although he did not express it; and if in this case something different were related from ‘Ali and Ibn Mas‘ud, the opponent could not use it as an argument.