Said he...

Said he, “Do not use analogy with regard to the religion of Allah, for if you apply analogy to the Shari`a , it will be obliterated. The first person who applied analogy was Iblis when he said, `I am better than him: You created me of fire while creating him of mud.'“ These are the legislative sources of the Shi`as since the time of Ali ibn Abu Talib and till our time; so, what are the legislative sources of “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah”?

[^1]: We mean by these the ijtihad of the scholars with reference to issues regarding which there is no text and which took place following the occultation of the Twelfth Imam . [^2]: According to some narratives, he said, “And besides these (two), I shall follow my own ijtihad,” a false addition and a lie invented by those who believe in and who follow ijtihad. Imam Ali never, not even for one day, did he claim that he followed his own view.

Rather, he always derived the injunctions from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger , or he would say, “We have al-saheefa al-jami`a: in it there is everything people need, including the penalty for slightly scratching one's cheek.” This saheefa was dictated by the Messenger of Allah and written in Ali's hand-writing, and we have already discussed it in the chapter headed “Ahlul Sunnah and the Obliteration of the Sunnah” in this book. [^3]: This is stated on p.