90  CONSENSUS AND DISAGREEMENT  

saying'.—'He disagrees with the general doctrine of the body of learned men whose decisions have been transmitted.'—'Q.: What is the proof for the authority of that on which men are agreed? A.: When the Prophet ordered men to hold fast to the community of Muslims, this could only mean that they were to accept the doctrine of the community; it is reasonable, too, to assume that the community cannot [p. 272] as a whole be ignorant of a ruling given by Allah and the Prophet. Such ignorance is possible only in individuals, whereas something on which all [Muslims] are agreed cannot be wrong and whosoever accepts such a doctrine does so in conformity with the sunna of the Prophet.'¹—'This is neither reasonable nor in keeping with the decisions of those who have given decisions from the first time of Islam onwards.'—P. 275: It is not permissible to disagree with an unambiguous text of the Koran, nor an established sunna, 'nor, I think, with the community at large (jama'at al-nās), even when there is no Koran or sunna'.

Ris.: the consensus of the scholars or of their majority appears explicitly on pp. 19, 21, 21 f., 24, 25, 32, 40, 46, 48 ult., 72 (at the end), 73 (at the beginning), 82 (at the beginning). The consensus of the Muslims at large occurs on pp. 46, 58, 72. Shāfi'ī contrasts both kinds of consensus and obviously ascribes higher authority to the consensus of the Muslims at large on p. 63. There he claims that one might almost say that the Muslims in both early and later times are agreed on a point of theory, but he will go only so far as to say that he has not heard that the Muslim scholars were divided on the issue.

In the main passage on consensus, on p. 65, Shāfi'ī discusses only the consensus of the community at large and severs its historical connexion with the old idea of sunna or 'living tradition'. 'Q.: What is your argument for following the consensus of the public (ma jtama' al-nās 'alaih) on a question where there is no explicit command of Allah [in the Koran] and where no decision of the Prophet is related: do you, as others do, hold that the consensus of the public is always based on an established sunna² even if it is not related? A.: That on which the public are agreed and which, they state, is related from the Prophet, that is so, I trust. But as to that which the public do not [explicitly] relate [from the Prophet], which they may or may not assert on the basis of a tradition from the Prophet, so that we cannot consider it as [certainly] transmitted on the authority of the Prophet.