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B17 · باب وجوه الاعتراض على العلل الطردية · Objections to ṭard causes (conceding the cause, denial, wrong construction, counter-case), shifting ground, and being cut off in debate (v2/266–289)

1. B17.01 · القول بموجب العلة · Conceding the cause's requirement: grant what the reasoning proves, and show it does not reach the point in dispute, forcing the ṭard reasoner into the real fiqh (v2/266–269)
2. B17.02 · الممانعة · Denial against ṭard causes: of the feature, of its fitness, of the ruling, and of tying the ruling to it (v2/269–276)
3. B17.03 · فساد الوضع · Wrong construction: a cause built to yield the opposite of what its nature yields; worse than a counter-case (v2/276–283)
4. B17.04 · المناقضة · A counter-case forces the ṭard reasoner back to effect (v2/283–286)
5. B17.05 · الانتقال والانقطاع · Three kinds of shifting are legitimate; shifting to a new cause for the same ruling because the first could not prove it is being cut off (adding a clearer proof is not); the four signs of being cut off (v2/286–289)

B17.01 · القول بموجب العلة · Conceding the cause's requirement: grant what the reasoning proves, and show it does not reach the point in dispute, forcing the ṭard reasoner into the real fiqh (v2/266–269)

• Position: four objections, in order: conceding the requirement, denial, wrong construction, counter-case; concession comes first, since agreement is sought before dispute. «ثمَّ تَفْسِير القَوْل بِمُوجب الْعلَّة هُوَ الْتِزَام مَا رام الْمُعَلل الْتِزَامه بتعليله» (v2/266) — "conceding the cause's requirement is accepting what the reasoner aimed to establish by his reasoning." (v2/266)
• Furūʿ test: "the head-wipe is a pillar, so tripling it is sunna": granted, and quadrupling too, but not by repeated complete wipes: the obligatory wipe is a quarter of the head (for him the least the name covers), and one complete wipe of the whole head, which is sunna, supplies the further portions in places other than where the obligation fell (entering three houses is three entries, like entering one house three times); if he says "repeated", we deny it in the root: washing is completed, and repetition is incidental there because covering is already obligatory; the head is completed by covering it, as recitation is completed by length. al-Shāfiʿī: "an act of devotion one does not continue once spoiled, so no make-up for spoiling": granted, make-up is owed not by spoiling but by what made performance binding, starting; if he rewords it "so starting does not bind, like wuḍūʾ", starting binds because the act is of the kind a vow binds, not by the feature he named. "salam of Marw cloth in Marw cloth is 'a measured thing in a measured thing', like Harawī in Marwī": granted, that does not void it, but genus may. "A revocably divorced woman is divorced, so forbidden": granted she is divorced, but she is lawful because still married. "Divorce does not reach the khulʿ wife, since she is not a wife": granted, but a hand of ownership remains in her ʿidda. In the ẓihār expiation, freeing an unbeliever slave "is freeing in expiation, so it does not count, as in the killing expiation": granted that it does not count by that feature; it counts by obedience to the command, as fasting two months or feeding sixty does, so he must show that obedience fails here as it does in the killing expiation (for him because the unqualified is read by the qualified). "No part-whole between brothers": granted, but kinship barring marriage completes the cause. «وَهُوَ طَرِيق حسن لإلجاء أَصْحَاب الطَّرْد إِلَى الشُّرُوع فِي فقه الْمَسْأَلَة» (v2/269) — "it is a good way to force the ṭard people into the fiqh of the question". (v2/266–269)

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B17.02 · الممانعة · Denial against ṭard causes: of the feature, of its fitness, of the ruling, and of tying the ruling to it (v2/269–276)

• Four kinds: «الممانعة على هَذَا الطَّرِيق على أَرْبَعَة أوجه إِحْدَاهَا فِي الْوَصْف وَالثَّانيَِة فِي صَلَاحِية الْوَصْف للْحكم وَالثَّالِثَة فِي الحكم وَالرَّابِعَة فِي إِضَافَة الحكم إِلَى الْوَصْف» (v2/269) — "denial on this approach is of four kinds: of the feature, of the feature's fitness for the ruling, of the ruling, and of attaching the ruling to the feature", since for the ṭard people a cause is an outwardly fit feature with the ruling tied to it in presence and absence. (v2/269)
• The feature: al-Shāfiʿī: "the expiation is a penalty tied to intercourse, so not to eating, like stoning"; denied: it is tied to breaking the fast as a complete offence. (v2/269)
• Fitness: "a wiping purification, so thrice, like stone-cleansing": the feature is denied in the root (stone-cleansing removes impurity, not a wiping), and wiping, which signals lightening, is not fit to carry a rule of three. "An apple for two apples is food for food of its genus by guess (mujāzafa), like heap for heap"; guess by count does not void (a qafīz for a qafīz), and guess by measure exists only in measured things; for him prohibition is the root and validity needs equal measure and hand to hand; for us sale is lawful at root and void only by an excess in measure. The young previously married girl "whose consent is expected, so not married without it, like one asleep": present consent or future? She has no present consent either way, and a future one cannot act before it exists. (v2/269–271)
• The ruling: the head-wipe (what is sunna in washing is completion, not repetition as such; the ears are wiped with the head, with no new water, because that wipe only completes the head-wipe; and since "the ears are of the head" is by Sunna, not the Book, wiping them does not stand in for the obligatory wipe); the Ramaḍān intention ("specifying before or after it is fixed?": it must mean before, and that is denied in the branch, «فَإِن التعين حَاصِل هُنَا بِأَصْل الشَّرْع» (v2/272), "for here it is already fixed by the Law itself", as only the obligatory fast is legislated in that time); unmeasured foods ("absolute prohibition, or prohibition until equality?"); salam in animals ("a debt in the dhimma as dower": known by description or by value? If by description, that is denied in the root, since a dower need not be known by description; if by value, it is denied in the branch, since described animals still vary grossly in value); taking possession in food for food ("to remove debt status or for extra protection?": for us possession in currency exchange removes debt status, since money is not fixed until possessed; if that is his meaning, it fails in the branch, «فالطعام يتَعَيَّن فِي العقد بِالتَّعْيِينِ من غير قبض» (v2/274), "for food is fixed in the contract by designation without possession"); buying one's father for expiation ("freedom" is the Law's effect, "freeing" is the act; the heir does no act); feeding by permission ("with obedience to the command or without?": feeding is enabling to eat); theft (liability "with something negating it or without?": the rebel's taking is not liable; the hand-cutting negates liability, like a release). (v2/271–275)
• The tie: absence cannot cause, so "no part-whole", "not property", "not married" are denied as the cause of the ruling in the root: the brother (the cousin is not freed, but not because of that), marriage (a ḥadd is not proved by women, but not "because it is not property"), the ill person under iḥṣār, the finally divorced woman's maintenance and divorce. (v2/275–276)

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B17.03 · فساد الوضع · Wrong construction: a cause built to yield the opposite of what its nature yields; worse than a counter-case (v2/276–283)

• Position: «اعْلَم بِأَن فَسَاد الْوَضع فِي الْعِلَل بِمَنْزِلَة فَسَاد الْأَدَاء فِي الشَّهَادَة» (v2/276) — "wrong construction in causes is like faulty delivery in testimony", and comes before a counter-case; after it the reasoner can only move to another cause, while a counter-case can be guarded against in the next session. (v2/276)
• Furūʿ test: (1) al-Shāfiʿī: one spouse's conversion "is a difference of religion, so separation without a qāḍī, like apostasy": the difference arises from Islam, which protects ownership, so it is wrongly built for separation. (2) "The head-wipe is a pillar, so thrice": it turns lightening into more than washing, extending repetition beyond the obligatory part. (3) The unperformed ḥajj intended as voluntary "counts as obligatory, like zakāt": it turns the explicit into the vague and the qualified into the unqualified, while the vague goes to the explicit, and the unqualified is read by the qualified (for him even across two events or two rulings; for us only in one event and one ruling: we read "three days" as consecutive by Ibn Masʿūd's reading, one event and one ruling; a qualified coin is not read as the local coin). (4) Ribā by "food, on which life depends": need makes sale wider, not narrower (carrion in famine; soldiers eat spoils before division). (5) The free man "may not expose his seed to slavery when he does not need to": freedom brings more honour and ownership (four wives vs two). (6) Madness for one full prayer's time or one fasting day "drops the make-up, since the address drops, as when madness lasts more than a day and a night for prayer or covers the whole month for fasting": madness is inability to understand, not loss of fitness for worship (the mad man stays a believer and inherits; the mad woman is not separated from her Muslim husband; his iḥrām and his begun fast stand); the address drops, but the cause of obligation stands, as for one asleep, one unconscious, or a convert in enemy lands; make-up drops only for hardship (Q 22:78; 2:286): for prayer, madness long enough for missed prayers to pile up; for fasting, madness covering the whole month; menstruation drops prayer make-ups, not fasting; a two-month killing expiation need not be restarted after a break for menstruation, a vow of ten consecutive days must; the child; unconsciousness is like madness in prayer and like sleep in fasting. (7) Money "is fixed by designation in gifts, so in exchanges": gifts transfer a specific thing, exchanges create a debt in the dhimma. (8) The bankrupt buyer: "the price is one of the two counter-values, so inability to pay allows cancellation, like the goods": the sale's effect in the price is a debt, complete at the contract, so bankruptcy does not flaw it (the price can be released, the goods not; the mukātab differs, since ownership of the instalments comes only with payment). (v2/276–282)
• «وَأَن أعدل الطّرق فِي تَصْحِيح الْعلَّة مَا كَانَ عَلَيْهِ السّلف من اعْتِبَار التَّأْثِير» (v2/283) — "the fairest way of validating a cause is the salaf's: attention to effect." (v2/282–283)

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B17.04 · المناقضة · A counter-case forces the ṭard reasoner back to effect (v2/283–286)

• Furūʿ test: al-Shāfiʿī on intention in wuḍūʾ: "tayammum and wuḍūʾ are two purities; how can they differ?" is broken by all their differences, and "equal in intention" by washing impurity. Forced to effect, he says both are ritual, not rationally understood. We: water purifies by nature (Q 25:48), as fire burns without intent; ḥadath affects the whole body, and washing the main limbs stands in for it for ease; what is not understood is the substitution of places, not the act of using water; tayammum is at root soiling, pure only for prayer, so it needs intention; wuḍūʾ as worship needs intention, wuḍūʾ that removes ḥadath does not. They say "divorce is not property, so not proved by women with men", broken by virginity and suckling; forced to effect, they say women's testimony is a necessity for frequent matters; we: it is an original proof with a doubt, barred only where doubt voids (ḥudūd), and marriage, divorce and agency are proved despite doubts. They say "usurpation is pure wrong, so no ownership", broken by a father's or a partner's istīlād; their effect: pure wrong means free of doubt. We: pure-wrong usurpation causes no ownership, but ownership of the substitute (a lawful ruling) brings ownership of the thing, as a condition. Usufructs "are property destroyed, so liable" is broken by the destitute destroyer; if he says the liability stands but payment waits, so do we: until the Hereafter, because liability for wrong is fixed by the like, by text, and a usufruct has no like in value. (v2/283–286)
• «فيقرر بِمَا ذكرنَا أَن الِاعْتِمَاد على الاطراد من غير طلب التَّأْثِير ضَعِيف فِي بَاب الِاحْتِجَاج» (v2/286) — "relying on concomitance without seeking effect is weak in argument", like arguing from "no proof". (v2/286) → B14.04

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B17.05 · الانتقال والانقطاع · Three kinds of shifting are legitimate; shifting to a new cause for the same ruling because the first could not prove it is being cut off (adding a clearer proof is not); the four signs of being cut off (v2/286–289)

• Legitimate: (1) to another cause to prove the first (the child depositary: prove "valid empowerment"; prove a root, such as the basmala not being a verse of the Fātiḥa; prove qiyās by a Companion, the Companion by a report, the report by the Book); (2) to a second ruling by the first cause once the first is conceded (the mukātab: "a contract open to cancellation" also shows slavery is not reduced), "the height of skill"; (3) to a second ruling by another cause, once the opponent has conceded the first ruling. (v2/286–287)
• The fourth: some allow moving to a new cause for the same ruling, citing Ibrāhīm (Q 2:258) and a claimant whose two witnesses are impugned bringing two others. «وَالْمذهب الصَّحِيح عِنْد عَامَّة الْفُقَهَاء أَن هَذَا النَّوْع من الِانْقِطَاع» (v2/288) — "the sound doctrine, for most jurists: this kind is being cut off", since it shows inability, and debate aims at making clear. Ibrāhīm did not move before his first proof stood; his opponent made a new, plainly false claim, and he added a clearer proof for those who follow appearances. Adding "what makes this clearer" is fine: "the proofs of the Law are lights", like lamp added to lamp; «وَإِنَّمَا جعلنَا هَذَا انْقِطَاعًا فِي مَوضِع يكون الِانْتِقَال للعجز عَن إِثْبَات الحكم بِالْعِلَّةِ الأولى» (v2/288) — "we made this being cut off only where the shift comes from inability to prove the ruling by the first cause". Shifting belongs to the answerer, who builds, not the questioner, who demolishes. (v2/287–288)
• Four signs of being cut off: silence; denying what is known by sight; denying after conceding (if he conceded by oversight, he must first answer on the conceded basis); the reasoner's inability to prove his cause so that he shifts to another. (v2/289)
• [Editorial] Debate note: B17 is the practical manual against a formal, ṭard-style opponent: first concede and show the point is not reached, then deny, then show wrong construction; and know when a shift of argument counts as being cut off.

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