SUNNA, 'PRACTICE' AND 'LIVING TRADITION' 63

al-amr al-mujtama' 'alaih 'indanā 'our generally agreed practice', al-amr alladhī la khilaf fih 'indana 'our practice on which there is no disagreement', terms which occur passim in the Muwatta' and elsewhere.¹ It is called 'ancient practice' (al-amr al-qadīm) in a quotation from Yahyā b. Sa'īd in Tr. VIII, 14, and this, Shāfi'i points out, may either be something that one must follow [when it is based on a tradition from the Prophet], or else it may proceed from governors whom one is not obliged to follow. The best the opponent can do, Shāfi'i says, is to suppose that the case in question belongs to the first kind.

That the 'practice' existed first and traditions from the Prophet and from Companions appeared later, is clearly stated in Mud. iv. 28, where Ibn Qāsim gives a theoretical justification of the Medinese point of view. He says: 'This tradition has come down to us, and if it were accompanied by a practice passed to those from whom we have taken it over by their own predecessors, it would be right to follow it. But in fact it is like those other traditions which are not accompanied by practice. [Here Ibn Qāsim gives examples of traditions from the Prophet and from Companions.] But these things could not assert themselves and take root (lam tashtadd wa-lam taqwa), the practice was different, and the whole community and the Companions themselves acted on other rules. So the traditions remained neither discredited [in principle] nor adopted in practice (ghair mukadhdhab bih wa-lā ma'mūl bih), and actions were ruled by other traditions which were accompanied by practice. These traditions were passed on from the Companions to the Successors, and from these to those after them, without rejecting or casting doubt on others that have come down and have been transmitted.² But what was eliminated from practice is left aside and not regarded as authoritative, and only what is corroborated by practice is followed and so regarded. Now the rule which is well established and is accompanied by practice is expressed in the words of the Prophet . . . and the words of Ibn 'Umar to the same effect. . . .³

The Medinese thus oppose 'practice' to traditions. The dead-