SHĀFI'I AND LEGAL TRADITIONS 17

'The only criterion for the reliability of a tradition is its transmission from the Prophet by reliable men, and the fact that some Companions have agreed with it does not strengthen it, nor does the fact that some Companions have acted against it warrant its rejection, because they are themselves, together with all Muslims, dependent on the orders of the Prophet, and not qualified to confirm them or to detract from them by their concurring or dissenting opinions. If it is objected that a tradition from the Prophet becomes suspect if some Companions act differently, the tradition [regarding the action] of those Companions may as well be suspected for the same reason, or both be suspected equally, but what is transmitted from the Prophet deserves more consideration. As to opinions which are not transmitted from the Prophet, nobody may regard them as going implicitly back to him, because some Companions were unaware of the orders of the Prophet, and they must be quoted only as their private opinions, as long as the Companion does not relate them from the Prophet. If one pretends that the opinion of a Companion cannot have originated but with the Prophet, one ought never to disagree with the opinions of the Companion in question; yet there is no man, after the Prophet, whose opinions are not partly accepted and partly rejected in favour of those of another Companion. Only the words of the Prophet cannot be rejected on account of the opinions of another.'

As he did with his doctrine on traditions from the Prophet, Shafi'i claims that this supplement to it is common ground for him and his opponents, particularly the Iraqians,¹ but again it is obvious from Shafi'i's sustained polemics and from passages such as Tr. VIII, 40, that he forces his point of view on them, rejects their rudimentary theory, and puts them in a position which leaves them without justification for their different attitude.

In Shafi'i's view it is ignorance to interpret a sunna of the Prophet in the light of a tradition from a Companion, as if it would be confirmed thereby; traditions from others than the Prophet ought rather to be interpreted in the light of what is related from the Prophet (Tr. I, 51); he even goes so far as to say that the words of the Prophet are a better indication of what the Prophet meant than the statement of another person, and that no conclusions on what the Prophet meant can be drawn