-
The_Savior_from_Spiritual_Error_and_50_Principles, page : 79
(ra‟y)? That is precisely the place where differences occur”.
To this we reply: “We do what Mu`ath did when the Messenger of Allah,
peace be upon him, sent him to the Yemen; we judge by the actual text where
there is a text, and by our independent reasoning where there is no text.¹ That
is exactly what their preachers do when they are away from the Imam at the
remotest corners of the land. They cannot in all cases judge by the text, for
the texts which are finite in number cannot deal with all the infinite variety of
events; nor is it possible for them to return to the city of the Imam over every
difficult case-while the preacher is traveling there and back the person
concerned may have died, and the journey will have been fruitless. For
instance, if a man is in doubt about the qiblah,² the only course open to him is
to pray according to his independent judgment. If he were to go to the city of
the Imam to obtain a knowledge of the qiblah, the time of prayer would be
past. As a matter of fact, prayer fulfils the law even when directed to what is
wrongly supposed to be the qiblah. There is also the saying that the man who
is mistaken in independent judgment receives a reward, but the man who is
correct a twofold reward; and that is the case in all questions left to
independent judgment.
To this we reply: “We do what Mu`ath did when the Messenger of Allah,
peace be upon him, sent him to the Yemen; we judge by the actual text where
there is a text, and by our independent reasoning where there is no text.¹ That
is exactly what their preachers do when they are away from the Imam at the
remotest corners of the land. They cannot in all cases judge by the text, for
the texts which are finite in number cannot deal with all the infinite variety of
events; nor is it possible for them to return to the city of the Imam over every
difficult case-while the preacher is traveling there and back the person
concerned may have died, and the journey will have been fruitless. For
instance, if a man is in doubt about the qiblah,² the only course open to him is
to pray according to his independent judgment. If he were to go to the city of
the Imam to obtain a knowledge of the qiblah, the time of prayer would be
past. As a matter of fact, prayer fulfils the law even when directed to what is
wrongly supposed to be the qiblah. There is also the saying that the man who
is mistaken in independent judgment receives a reward, but the man who is
correct a twofold reward; and that is the case in all questions left to
independent judgment.