أَمْ كَانُوا شُرَكَاءَ لَهُ فَلَهُمْ أَنْ يَقُولُوا...

Alternative Sources for Sermon 18 (1) Ibn Talhah, Matalib, I, 141; (2) al-Tabarsi, al-'Ihtijaj, I, 139; (3) al-Qadi al-Nu`man, Da`a'im, I, 93; (4) Narrated by Ibn Udhaynah from al-'Imam al-Sadiq (A) in al-Nuri, Mustadrak al-Wasa'il, III, 174; see also al-Saffar, Basa'ir al-darajat. [^1]: It is a disputed problem that where there is no clear argument about a matter in the religious law, whether there does in reality exist an order about it or not.

The view adopted by Abu'l-Hasan al-Ash`ari and his master Abu `Ali al-Jubba'i is that in such a case Allah has not ordained any particular course of action but He assigned the task of finding it out and passing a verdict to the jurists so that whatever they hold as prohibited would be deemed prohibited and whatever they regard permissible would be deemed permissible.

And if one has one view and the other another then as many verdicts will exist as there are views and each of them would represent the final order. For example, if one scholar holds that barley malt is prohibited and another jurist's view is that it is permissible then it would really be both prohibited and permissible. That is, for one who holds it prohibited, its use would be prohibited while for the other its use would be permissible.