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B3 · باب النهي · Prohibition (al-nahy), causes of the rulings, their grades, ʿazīma and rukhṣa (v1/78–124)

1. B3.01 · موجب النهي · A prohibition requires abstaining, and makes the prohibited thing bad by the law (v1/78–80)
2. B3.02 · مراتب القبح · Badness is of three grades: in itself; from something adjacent; from something joined as a description (v1/80–81)
3. B3.03 · النهي عن التصرفات الشرعية · A prohibition of a legal act for a joined description leaves it legitimate in principle but defective in performance, unless unlawfulness and the act's survival cannot coexist (then it is abrogation in the form of a prohibition); for al-Shāfiʿī it abrogates it (v1/82–94)
4. B3.04 · الأمر والنهي في أضدادهما · A command makes its opposite disliked; a prohibition may make its opposite a sunna of wājib-like force; both by implication (iqtiḍāʾ), not by text (v1/94–99)
5. B3.05 · أسباب الشرائع · God alone obliges; the law set visible causes (sabab) so that duties can be recognised, and each duty is linked to its cause (v1/100–110)
6. B3.06 · أقسام المشروعات · Legislated acts are farḍ, wājib, sunna and nafl; the wājib is the Ḥanafī category between farḍ and sunna (v1/110–116)
7. B3.07 · العزيمة والرخصة · ʿAzīma is the original ruling; rukhṣa is what is permitted for an excuse, in two literal grades (the prohibiting cause remains) and two figurative grades (v1/117–124)

B3.01 · موجب النهي · A prohibition requires abstaining, and makes the prohibited thing bad by the law (v1/78–80)

• Position: «اعْلَم بِأَن مُوجب النَّهْي شرعا لُزُوم الِانْتِهَاء عَن مُبَاشرَة الْمنْهِي عَنهُ لِأَنَّهُ ضد الْأَمر» — "What the prohibition requires by the law is the duty to refrain from doing the prohibited thing, because it is the opposite of the command." (v1/78)
  • «فَإِذا تبين مُوجب النَّهْي قُلْنَا مُقْتَضى النَّهْي قبح الْمنْهِي عَنهُ شرعا» — "Once its requirement is clear, we say: the prohibition implies that the prohibited thing is bad by the law", as the command implies the good. (v1/79)
• Objection → Reply: "Why not say it implies that refraining is good?" Reply: then command and prohibition would imply the same thing. Refraining is the absence of the act, which is original and not the servant's doing, so it cannot be the intended object of praise. (v1/79) "But leaving an act is itself an act." Reply: true, but the prohibition's requirement is abstention, which spans the whole life, even before one knows of it. The act of leaving arises only when one is tempted and chooses to leave. (v1/79)
• Furūʿ test: the fasting person is commanded to refrain from the two appetites, yet this refraining does not count as a pillar of the fast unless he knows of it and intends it, while the ʿidda is completed by abstentions even if the woman does not know of it. "If I do not wish to divorce you, you are divorced", followed by "I do not wish": no divorce, since not-wishing spans his life. "If I refuse to divorce you…" followed by "I refuse": divorce, since refusing is an act. (v1/79–80)

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B3.02 · مراتب القبح · Badness is of three grades: in itself; from something adjacent; from something joined as a description (v1/80–81)

• Position: «الْمنْهِي عَنهُ فِي صفة الْقبْح قِسْمَانِ قسم مِنْهُ مَا هُوَ قَبِيح لعَينه وَقسم مِنْهُ مَا هُوَ قَبِيح لغيره» — "What is prohibited is of two kinds in its badness: bad in itself, and bad because of something else." The second divides into «مَا هُوَ قَبِيح لِمَعْنى جاوره جمعا» — "bad for a meaning adjacent to it", and «مَا هُوَ قَبِيح لِمَعْنى اتَّصل بِهِ وَصفا» — "bad for a meaning joined to it as a description." (v1/80)
  1. Bad in itself → not legitimate at all: futility and folly; sodomy (no place of offspring); sale of unborn young (no property); prayer without purity (no capacity to pray). (v1/80)
  2. Adjacent → valid and legitimate despite the prohibition: intercourse during menses (the harm is adjacent); sale at the Friday call; prayer on usurped land. The fasting person who skips prayer is obedient in his fast and a sinner for the prayer. (v1/80–81) So intercourse during menses makes a thrice-divorced woman lawful again for her first husband, and establishes iḥṣān. (v1/81)
     • ⚑ Enjoyment during menses: Muḥammad allows it apart from the place of the blood; Abū Ḥanīfa above the waist-wrapper only, out of caution. (v1/80–81)
  3. Joined as a description: zinā (intercourse not owned); ribā (loss of the required equality); the fast on the ʿĪd days (the day is a day of hospitality). (v1/81)
• Agreed: sensory acts of the third kind (zinā, wine) are bad in themselves, which is why ḥadd penalties, which fall away with doubt, attach to them. (v1/81) The dispute is over contracts and acts of worship (B3.03).

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B3.03 · النهي عن التصرفات الشرعية · A prohibition of a legal act for a joined description leaves it legitimate in principle but defective in performance, unless unlawfulness and the act's survival cannot coexist (then it is abrogation in the form of a prohibition); for al-Shāfiʿī it abrogates it (v1/82–94)

• Position: «قَالَ عُلَمَاؤُنَا مُوجب مُطلق النَّهْي فِيهَا تَقْرِير الْمَشْرُوع مَشْرُوعا وَجعل أَدَاء العَبْد إِذا بَاشَرَهَا فَاسِدا إِلَّا بِدَلِيل» — "Our scholars said: what the unqualified prohibition requires in these is that the legitimate act remains legitimate, and the servant's performance, when he does it, becomes defective (fāsid), unless there is evidence." (v1/82)
  • The exception: «إِلَّا فِي مَوضِع يتَعَذَّر الْجمع بَين صفة الْحُرْمَة وَبَقَاء الأَصْل فَحِينَئِذٍ يَنْعَدِم ضَرُورَة وَيكون ذَلِك نسخا من طَرِيق الْمَعْنى فِي صُورَة النَّهْي لَا أَن يكون نهيا حَقِيقَة» — "except where unlawfulness and the survival of the act itself cannot be combined; then it ceases by necessity, and that is abrogation in meaning in the form of a prohibition, not a true prohibition." (v1/86) Examples: the nights of wiṣāl (the law took night out of the fast's time, v1/92) and "it is not lawful for them to conceal" (Q 2:228), which «فَهُوَ نسخ وَلَيْسَ بنهي» — "is abrogation, not prohibition." (v1/97)
• Who: «وَقَالَ الشَّافِعِي مُوجب مُطلق النَّهْي فِي هَذَا النَّوْع انتساخ الْمنْهِي عَنهُ وَخُرُوجه من أَن يكون مَشْرُوعا أصلا إِلَّا بِدَلِيل» — "al-Shāfiʿī said: the unqualified prohibition in this kind abrogates the prohibited thing, and it ceases to be legitimate at all, unless there is evidence." (v1/82)
  • His reasons: the prohibition is the opposite of the command, and the unqualified form takes the complete meaning (bad in itself). The least of the legitimate is the permitted, and the bad-in-itself cannot be permitted. The prohibited is not approved by God, and the legitimate is what He approves. (v1/82–83)
  • His furūʿ: zinā does not create marriage-kinship prohibitions; a defective sale gives no ownership; usurpation gives no ownership; non-Muslims' seizure of Muslim property gives them no ownership; no vow to fast on ʿĪd; the sinful traveller gets no travel dispensations; no sale of impure oil. (v1/83–84) His exceptions: ẓihār (its expiation is a penalty), the co-owner's umm walad, divorce during menses, and iḥrām with intercourse. (v1/84–85) His distinction for iḥrām: intercourse corrupts the performance, but «وَلَيْسَ إِلَى العَبْد ولَايَة تَغْيِير الْمَشْرُوع» — "the servant has no authority to change what is legislated" — while «وللشرع ولَايَة نفي الْمَشْرُوع» — "the Lawgiver has authority to negate the legislation", which His unqualified prohibition does in the general case, and He has not done so for iḥrām; so the route out of iḥrām by performing the rites stays legislated as before, and what the violator owes is a consequence (jazāʾ) of committing the forbidden, not something legislated from the start. (v1/85)
• Proofs
  1. Muḥammad in Kitāb al-Ṭalāq on the ʿĪd fast: «فنهانا عَمَّا يتكون وَعَما لَا يتكون وَالنَّهْي عَمَّا لَا يتكون لَغْو» — "so he prohibited us either what can come about or what cannot; and prohibiting what cannot come about is idle", like saying to the blind "do not see". The prohibition is of the legal fast, so the legal fast must remain possible on that day. (v1/85)
  2. Prohibition requires something to refrain from; the non-existent is nothing. So the prohibition is the opposite of abrogation: abrogation removes the legitimate act, while prohibition forbids performing what remains legitimate. (v1/85–86) Compare "do not approach this tree" (Q 2:35): the approach was forbidden, not the tree removed. (v1/86)
  3. Sensory acts can be forbidden without ceasing to exist; legal acts exist only if they remain legitimate. Keeping them legitimate honours the prohibition's true meaning. (v1/86)
  4. Prohibition is a test, which needs choice and so a real act. The implied badness is established to make the prohibition work, not to destroy it: «وَلَكِن ثُبُوت الْمُقْتَضى لتصحيح الْمُقْتَضى لَا لإبطاله» — "the implied is established to validate what implies it, not to void it." (v1/87) al-Shāfiʿī's own iḥrām exception supports this: «والعذر الَّذِي ذكره يرجع إِلَى تَحْقِيق مَا ذكرنَا» — "the exception he mentioned comes back to confirming what we said": if defectiveness entailed loss of the act itself, the law's own ruling that iḥrām is spoiled would remove it, as apostasy annuls it and iḥṣār lets him leave it before the rites. (v1/87)
• Furūʿ test (v1/88–94)
  • ʿĪd fast: the vow is valid, fulfilled on another day, and if he fasts that day his vow is discharged. Starting it does not bind him, according to Abū Ḥanīfa. Prayer at a disliked time is bound by starting it, since it can be completed without the prohibited feature. (v1/88–89)
  • A defective sale is legitimate in principle and gives an unlawful ownership, to be undone, once possession is taken. (v1/89)
  • Defective marriage is different: the only ownership in marriage is lawfulness itself, so unlawfulness cancels it. The ḥadīth "no marriage without witnesses" and the verses on unlawful relations are negation (nafy), a report that marriage does not exist without the condition, not prohibition (nahy). (v1/89–90)
  • Objection: "God has forbidden ribā" (Q 2:275) should abolish it, like "forbidden to you are your mothers". Reply: ribā means excess, and what is forbidden is gaining excess without counter-value. Ownership can coexist with unlawfulness. (v1/90–91)
  • Sale for wine is defective and still transfers the slave; sale for carrion or blood is void, since they have no property value at all. (v1/91) Sale of oil into which impurity fell is valid, since the impurity is adjacent. (v1/91)
  • The sinful traveller does get the dispensations: the cause (a long journey) is complete, and the sin is adjacent. (v1/92) The slanderer's testimony (Q 24:4) still exists, so a marriage witnessed by him is valid. (v1/92)
  • Zinā does create marriage-kinship prohibitions, because they arise from the child, who is honoured, and the intercourse stands in for the child — but only where the locus is one in which a child could be conceived, «وَذَلِكَ لَا يُوجد فِي هَذِه الْمَوَاضِع» — "and that is not found in these cases" (v1/93) — so intercourse with a dead woman, entry other than the place of conception, and intercourse with a young girl do not establish the prohibition. Non-Muslims own what they seize once it is secured in their territory; the usurper owns the thing once the compensation is fixed — except a mudabbar slave, where ownership does not pass to the usurper even after the compensation, to preserve the mudabbar's right to be freed on the owner's death. (v1/93–94)
• [Editorial] Debate note: This is the Ḥanafī locus of "does prohibition entail invalidity (al-nahy yaqtaḍī al-fasād)?". Sarakhsī's answer depends on the three grades in B3.02 and on the fāsid/bāṭil distinction, and it has stated exceptions (marriage, sensory acts). Argue it with those, not as a blanket rule.

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B3.04 · الأمر والنهي في أضدادهما · A command makes its opposite disliked; a prohibition may make its opposite a sunna of wājib-like force; both by implication (iqtiḍāʾ), not by text (v1/94–99)

• Position: on the command: «وَالْمُخْتَار عندنَا أَنه يَقْتَضِي كَرَاهَة ضِدّه وَلَا نقُول إِنَّه يُوجِبهُ أَو يدل عَلَيْهِ مُطلقًا» — "Our preferred view: it implies that its opposite is disliked; we do not say it requires or denotes it absolutely." (v1/94) The implication (iqtiḍāʾ) establishes only what necessity needs. (v1/95)
• Who (v1/94–97)
  • Some theologians: the command has no effect on its opposite, which is left unaddressed.
  • ⚑ al-Jaṣṣāṣ: the command prohibits its opposite(s), and he builds this on the command requiring immediate performance. Sarakhsī: that premise is a claim, and the report says otherwise (see B2.06).
  • Others: the opposite is disliked, by indication (dalāla).
  • On the prohibition: al-Jaṣṣāṣ holds it commands the opposite if there is only one opposite (e.g. "do not move" commands rest), not if there are several. A third view: it establishes a sunna "as strong as a wājib". Sarakhsī: on the preferred view it may imply that measure. (v1/96–97)
• Objection → Reply: the first group: «الضِّدّ مسكوت عَنهُ وَالسُّكُوت عَنهُ لَا يكون مُوجبا شَيْئا» — "the opposite is not addressed, and what is not addressed requires nothing" (v1/94), as a condition does not deny the ruling before it exists. Reply: «ثُبُوت كَرَاهَة ضِدّه بطرِيق الِاقْتِضَاء والمقتضى مسكوت عَنهُ» — "the dislike of its opposite is established by implication, and the implied is unaddressed" by definition; implication is a valid route. The condition case differs: there the absence before the condition is original absence, needing no cause. (v1/95)
• Aside: whether one is rewarded for refraining from killing oneself: «وَالأَصَح عِنْدِي أَنه ينَال بِهِ ثَوَاب المطيعين عِنْد قصد امْتِثَال الْأَمر وَإِظْهَار الطَّاعَة» — "The sounder view with me: he earns the reward of the obedient when he intends to comply and show obedience." (v1/97)
• Furūʿ test (v1/98–99)
  • One commanded to stand in prayer who sits does not void the prayer: the required standing still follows even after the sitting, so what the command obliges is not lost by it — «وَهُوَ الْقيام إِذا أَتَى بِهِ بعد الْقعُود» — "namely the standing, if he performs it after the sitting" (v1/98) — but the sitting itself is disliked.
  • The ʿidda rests on the prohibition's implication, so two ʿiddas run together; fasting rests on the command, so two fasts cannot share one day.
  • ⚑ Prostrating on an impure spot, then on a pure one: Abū Yūsuf says the prayer is valid; Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad say it is void.
  • ⚑ Leaving recitation in a voluntary pair: Abū Yūsuf says the opening consecration (taḥrīma) survives, since another pair can still be built on it, though the first pair is spoiled. Muḥammad holds recitation obligatory continuously from the prayer's start to its end, so losing it even in one rakʿa breaks the taḥrīma. Abū Ḥanīfa treats each pair as a separate prayer: losing recitation in one rakʿa does not break the taḥrīma, but «وبترك الْقِرَاءَة فِي الرَّكْعَتَيْنِ يفوت مَا هُوَ الْفَرْض قطعا» — "leaving recitation in both rakʿas definitively loses what is farḍ" (v1/99), which does break it, in one of two reports; under the other, even both rakʿas' loss leaves the taḥrīma standing, since another pair can still be built on it, though the pair is spoiled. In fajr, leaving it in one rakʿa spoils the farḍ; in one report from him the taḥrīma is not undone but turns voluntary, and in the other report he says the voluntary prayer keeps its taḥrīma because another pair can be built on it, a possibility fajr lacks. (v1/98–99)

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B3.05 · أسباب الشرائع · God alone obliges; the law set visible causes (sabab) so that duties can be recognised, and each duty is linked to its cause (v1/100–110)

• Position: «والموجب هُوَ الله تَعَالَى حَقِيقَة لَا تَأْثِير للأسباب فِي الْإِيجَاب بأنفسها» — "The one who obliges is truly God; the causes have no effect in obliging by themselves." He set causes other than the address "to make things easy for the servants". (v1/100)
  • The duty itself (aṣl al-wujūb) falls on a person by compulsion, with no act of his. The duty to perform (wujūb al-adāʾ) comes by the address, and there choice enters. So the sleeper, and the unconscious and the insane whose state does not exceed a day and night, are obliged and make up, though not addressed. (v1/100–101)
  • How a cause is known: the duty is attributed to it (iḍāfa) and linked to it (taʿalluq), e.g. it recurs as the cause recurs. (v1/101)
• The causes (v1/102–110)
  • Faith: God obliges it; its outward cause is the signs of the world's origination. Reason is only the lamp that lights the road, not the obliger. So a discerning child's faith is valid. (v1/102)
  • Prayer: the time. Fasting: witnessing the month, nights and days alike. Sarakhsī against a later author who made only the days the cause: «وَهَذَا غلط عِنْدِي» (v1/104) — "this is an error in my view." (v1/103–104) Ḥajj: the House; the ḥajj months are the condition. (v1/104–105) Purification: the prayer; ḥadath is the condition for having to perform it. (v1/105–106) Zakāt: a growing niṣāb, with the year as condition. (v1/106–107) Ṣadaqat al-fiṭr: the head one maintains; the fiṭr is the condition. (v1/107–108)
  • ʿUshr: productive land, by actual yield («بِاعْتِبَار حَقِيقَة النَّمَاء», v1/108). Kharāj: productive land, by the capacity to seek yield through cultivation («بِاعْتِبَار التَّمَكُّن من طلب النَّمَاء بالزراعة», v1/108); so ʿushr renews with every fresh harvest, while kharāj does not recur twice within one year. Jizya: the head, of one who is «كَافِرًا حرا لَهُ بنية صَالِحَة لِلْقِتَالِ» — "an unbelieving free man with a build fit for combat" (v1/108). Penalties: their crimes. Expiations: an act between prohibited and permitted. Dealings: "the survival [of the world] that God decreed is tied to engaging in them". (v1/108–110)

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B3.06 · أقسام المشروعات · Legislated acts are farḍ, wājib, sunna and nafl; the wājib is the Ḥanafī category between farḍ and sunna (v1/110–116)

• Position: «هَذِه المشروعات تَنْقَسِم على أَرْبَعَة أَقسَام فرض وواجب وَسنة وَنفل» — "These legislated acts divide into four: farḍ, wājib, sunna and nafl." (v1/110)
  • Farḍ: «فالفرض اسْم لمقدر شرعا لَا يحْتَمل الزِّيَادَة وَالنُّقْصَان وَهُوَ مَقْطُوع بِهِ» (v1/110) — "Farḍ is what the law fixed, admitting neither increase nor decrease, and it is certain", established by definitive evidence. Denying it is unbelief. Omitting it — «فِيمَا هُوَ من أَرْكَان الدّين لَا من أصل الدّين» — "in what belongs to the pillars of religion, not the foundation of religion" (v1/111) — is sin, not unbelief, unless out of contempt.
  • Wājib: binding in practice, established by evidence that obliges action but not certain knowledge, e.g. a single report. Denying it is not unbelief; one who rejects it (not by interpretation) is misguided. Examples: the Fātiḥa, calm in the pillars of prayer, purity in ṭawāf, saʿy, ʿumra, witr, uḍḥiya, ṣadaqat al-fiṭr. (v1/111–113)
  • Sunna: the path followed in the religion, set by the Prophet «وَالصَّحَابَة بعده عندنَا» (v1/113) — "and by the Companions after him, in our view". Makḥūl's two kinds: sunna of guidance (e.g. adhān, congregation: a whole town may be fought for abandoning it) and sunna whose omission is no harm. (v1/113–115)
  • Nafl: an addition "for us, not against us", which is why it may be prayed sitting or riding. (v1/115)
• Who
  • al-Shāfiʿī denies the wājib category and merges it into farḍ. Sarakhsī: if the dispute is about the name, the name has been explained; if about the ruling, the difference in the evidence forces it. (v1/112)
  • al-Shāfiʿī: "sunna" means only the Prophet's, since he does not follow the Companion's opinion. (v1/113–114)
  • al-Shāfiʿī: a voluntary act begun may be abandoned. "We": what has been performed is God's and must be protected by completing it, like a vow; if spoiled, it must be made up. (v1/115–116)
• Proofs: treating what a single report adds as farḍ would raise it above its rank, or lower the definitive text to its rank; «وَهَذَا لِأَن الدّلَالَة قَامَت لنا على أَن الزِّيَادَة على النَّص نسخ» — "This is because the evidence has established for us that addition to the text is abrogation." (v1/112) Example: recitation is farḍ by Q 73:20; specifying the Fātiḥa is by single report, so it is wājib. (v1/112–113)
  • The story of Yūsuf b. Khālid al-Samtī: Abū Ḥanīfa called witr "wājib", he thought "you have become an unbeliever", then understood that between wājib and farḍ "there is a difference like that between heaven and earth". (v1/112)
• Furūʿ test: Abū Ḥanīfa and Muḥammad: praying maghrib on the way to Muzdalifa must be repeated there until dawn, and not after, because the duty rests on a single report ("the prayer is ahead of you"). The order between missed prayers is by a single report, so it lapses when the time is short or the missed prayers are many. (v1/116)
• [Editorial] Debate note: The wājib category is where the Ḥanafī grading of evidence (B9: single report; B11: ziyāda = naskh) turns into practice. Al-Shāfiʿī «يُنكر هَذَا الْقسم» — "denies this category" (v1/112) as such, placing it with farḍ; with the page's examples, such as the Fātiḥa and witr: is his dispute over the name, which Sarakhsī says is settled once explained, or over this grading?

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B3.07 · العزيمة والرخصة · ʿAzīma is the original ruling; rukhṣa is what is permitted for an excuse, in two literal grades (the prohibiting cause remains) and two figurative grades (v1/117–124)

• Definitions: «الْعَزِيمَة فِي أَحْكَام الشَّرْع مَا هُوَ مَشْرُوع مِنْهَا ابْتِدَاء من غير أَن يكون مُتَّصِلا بِعَارِض» — "ʿAzīma in the law's rulings is what is legitimate originally, not tied to an incidental cause." «والرخصة مَا كَانَ بِنَاء على عذر يكون للعباد وَهُوَ مَا استبيح للْعُذْر مَعَ بَقَاء الدَّلِيل الْمحرم» — "Rukhṣa is what rests on an excuse of the servants: what is made permissible for the excuse while the prohibiting evidence remains." (v1/117)
  • Voluntary acts are ʿazīma. ⚑ Some of our colleagues say they are not, since they were legislated to make up for shortfalls; Sarakhsī: the first view is sounder. (v1/117)
• Grades (v1/117–124)
  1. Real, fullest: the prohibiting cause and its ruling both remain. Uttering unbelief under coercion; not commanding the good when one fears death; taking another's property in dire need; breaking a fast under coercion. Holding firm is better, and one killed for it is rewarded. (v1/118–119)
  2. Real, lesser: the cause remains but its ruling is deferred. The fast of the traveller and the sick in Ramaḍān. Against al-Shāfiʿī's "breaking the fast is better": «وَقُلْنَا نَحن الصَّوْم أفضل» (v1/119) — "we said: fasting is better", unless one fears death, in which case one must break it. (v1/119–120)
  3. Figurative, fullest: the burdens (iṣr, aghlāl) lifted from this umma (Q 7:157). They are not legislated for us at all — «لِانْعِدَامِ السَّبَب الْمُوجب للْحُرْمَة» — "because the cause requiring the prohibition is absent" (v1/120) — so the name "rukhṣa" is figurative, not because the prohibiting cause remains.
  4. Figurative in one respect: the cause no longer applies in this case, though it remains legitimate elsewhere. Salam (sale of what one lacks); wiping over footwear; eating carrion or drinking wine in dire need, which one must do: one who refuses and dies is sinful. (v1/120–122)
• Furūʿ test: ⚑ one who vows a year's fast "if I do such-and-such", does it, and is poor: on Muḥammad's view, a report from Abū Ḥanīfa that he adopted days before his death, he chooses between a year's fast and three days' fast (expiation), since the two differ in ruling; choice between different kinds gives real ease. (v1/124)
• Furūʿ test: shortening the prayer: the traveller may not pray four. «لِأَن السَّبَب لم يبْق فِي حَقه مُوجبا إِلَّا رَكْعَتَيْنِ» — "because the cause no longer requires more than two rakʿas of him"; the other two are voluntary. (v1/122)
  • al-Shāfiʿī: the cause requires four, and the traveller may choose. Reply: ʿUmar's ḥadīth, "a charity God has given you, so accept His charity". A remission by the rightful owner is not rejected by refusing it, and real choice between less and more of one kind brings no benefit to the servant. (v1/122–124)
• [Editorial] Debate note: The two Ḥanafī "must" rulings (the traveller prays two; the one in dire need eats) follow from grade 4. For the traveller, this is because the cause no longer obliges more than two rakʿas of him, not because a prohibiting cause has ceased to prohibit. Al-Shāfiʿī, who «رخص لَهُ فِي الِاكْتِفَاء بالركعتين» — "permitted him the rukhṣa of contenting himself with two rakʿas" (v1/122) while holding the cause still requires four, is using grade 2's logic of an unrestricted choice.

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