The advocacy of independent legal judgement was viewed as...

The advocacy of independent legal judgement was viewed as offering the possibility of release from the pattern established by the Prophet, whenever a judgement imagined to be more harmonious with the circumstances was called for.

By the same token, one observes that Shi`ites arose immediately after the Prophet's death, representing the Muslims who adhered in practice to the thesis of the Imam's preeminence and leadership, the first steps of whose implementation the Prophet had declared obligatory right after his departure. The Shi'ite current embodied, from the first, a repudiation of the Saqifah Council's attempt to paralyze the thesis for Imam `Ali's preeminence and to transfer authority to someone else.

In his Ihtijaj, Tabarsi related Aban b. Taghlab's words: I told Ja`far b. Muhammad al-Sadiq, “May I be offered in sacrifice for you! Is there anyone among the of God's Messenger who disclaims Abu Bakr's action?” He replied “Indeed. Twelve men repudiated it. Among the Muhajirin were Khalid b. Said, Ibn Abi al­`Asi, Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari al-Miqdad b. al-Aswad, `Ammar b. Yasir and Buraydah al-Aslami. Among the Ansar were Abu al-Haytham b. al-Tayhan, `Uthman b. Hanif, Khuzayma b.

Thabit Dhu al-Shahadatayn, Ubayy b. Ka'b, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.[^10] It may be argued that the Shi`ite current stood for religious devotion according to the text, while the tendency that opposed it represented independent legal judgement, with the implication that the Shi'ites had rejected independent legal judgement and did not allow themselves any right to exercise it. Yet observably, Shi'ites do make use of it constantly in legal practice.

The answer is that the kind of independent legal judgement practised by Shi`ites, and which they deem permissible - indeed, obligatory in a collective sense ( wajiban kifa'iyyan ) - is the one used to derive a juridical ruling from the legal text. It is not judgement applied to the legal text by virtue of either an opinion held by the practitioner or some conjectured benefit.” That is not permissible. The Shi'ite current disallowed the exercise of independent legal judgement in any such sense.

Whenever we speak of the rise of two currents at the beginning of Islam, one often intends the following.