88 CONSENSUS AND DISAGREEMENT

D. THE MU'TAZILA AND CONSENSUS

The Mu'tazila, or ahl al-kalam as Shāfi'ī calls them, acknowledge consensus and share the Iraqian concept of it as the general agreement of the people of all countries.¹

They apply this idea of consensus to traditions: if the whole community transmits a certain tradition from the Prophet, it cannot be mistaken.² This constitutes an extreme case of the 'wide spread' (tawātur) of traditions demanded by them.³

As regards the consensus of the community on questions left to personal opinion and systematic reasoning (ra'y and qiyas), the prominent Mu'tazilite Naẓẓām considered it fallible.⁴ This seems to have been a personal doctrine of Naẓẓām, notwithstanding the statement which Ibn Qutaiba, 241, quotes from a Mu'tazilite source, to the effect that legal rules which are unanimously accepted are nevertheless often refuted by the Koran. This statement is directed against the technical consensus of the scholars as accepted by the ancient schools. Of the numerous examples which Ibn Qutaiba adds, one at least (p. 256) is obviously an argument ad hominem, and others seem to be of the same kind.

E. SHĀFI'Ī AND CONSENSUS

Shāfi'ī's doctrine of consensus shows a continuous development throughout his writings.⁵ We have seen that the followers of the ancient schools distinguish between the consensus of all Muslims on essentials and the consensus of the scholars on points of detail.⁶ What follows tends to confirm the suggestion that it was Shāfi'ī who, using a favourite debating device of his, imposed this clear-cut distinction on a less sharply defined, two-sided idea of his opponents. Whether this is so or not, we have seen both Iraqians and Medinese making extensive use of the consensus of the scholars or even of the 'approved' scholars. Shāfi'ī started by recognizing and using this old concept of the