The Authority of Probable Consensus
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. You mentioned that scholarly consensus (ijma') is either definitive or probable. Is the probable type binding, or is it definitive?
The Shaykh:
Yes. Even if it is probable, it is obligatory to act upon it, unless a contrary opinion appears. As long as no contrary opinion has appeared, the apparent reality is that they are in consensus. As long as no contrary opinion has appeared, the apparent reality is that they are in consensus. We have nothing but the apparent reality. But is it said to be definitive? It is expansive. In terms of reality only, but in terms of deriving evidence, there is no doubt that consensus is used as evidence, even if it is probable.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. You mentioned that scholarly consensus (ijma') is either definitive or probable. Is the probable type binding, or is it definitive?
The Shaykh:
Yes. Even if it is probable, it is obligatory to act upon it, unless a contrary opinion appears. As long as no contrary opinion has appeared, the apparent reality is that they are in consensus. As long as no contrary opinion has appeared, the apparent reality is that they are in consensus. We have nothing but the apparent reality. But is it said to be definitive? It is expansive. In terms of reality only, but in terms of deriving evidence, there is no doubt that consensus is used as evidence, even if it is probable.
Source
شرح العقيدة الواسطية [37] — alfawzan.live (1:14:54)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.