771 In al-Qasimi’s book Tanbih al-talib ila ma’rifat al-fard wa al-wajib...

771 In al-Qasimi’s book Tanbih al-talib ila ma’rifat al-fard wa al-wajib, 772 there are regular rules, of which I state the following: It is concurred that the wujub (obligation) being one of the legal decrees (hukm). The ulama’ defined the hukm thus: It is an address (khitab) from Allah, related to acts of the mukallafun (responsible, charged with duties). And khitab is to address people with speech for making them comprehend.

While the wujub is a hukm, and the hukm can’t be but from a hakim (ruler) and the ruler is Allah the Most High alone, no one else. In regard of the product: Know that fairness tells us that there is no means for certainty to benefit from these verbal evidences, unless when they be yoked with contexts indicating yaqin (certainty), whether these contexts be witnessed or reported to us through tawatur.

Because if they be neither witnessed nor mutawatir, they should be reported through ahad which indicating nothing but conjecture. That was a brief excerpt from Minhaj al-Baydawi.

Some of the Hashwiyyah inferred the hadith “Every serious matter” to indicate wujub of initiating with Basmalah in his view, when he said: Since the hadith is a predicate verbally, and composition of a meaning, as it gives the meaning of imperative, which indicates wujub; and it is said to him: the condition of the imperative (amr) indicating wujub lies in two facts: First: Its establishment should be definite, that may be with a verse of the Book of Allah, or mutawatir tradition.

Second: Its indicating the meaning be definite, that it is improbable for the word to have another meaning. If one of the two factors of the imperative loses consideration, it will not indicate wujub. Then he became dumbfounded and amazed. Only the mujtahid can issue fatwa: This was declared by Ibn al-Hammam (may God’s mercy be upon him). Ibn Yusuf and Zafar and others said: It is not lawful for anyone to issue fatwa on our utterance, unless he be aware of the source of our saying.

That is because if he gives decision to obligate or prohibit anything, he should rely upon a manifest evidence, in which he has to do his utmost. Whereas the imitator is not permitted to do so since he has closed all the doors in front of him, loosening as much as he could of veil and cover. Al-Ghazali, in his book Faysal al-tafriqah, writes: It is more proper for the imitator to keep silent and to be left free (not to speak against him). That was the excerpt I quoted from this book.