AUZĀ'Ī REASONING 289

unmistakable¹ and produces the historically false notion of an ancient practice opposed to the present, actual one;² but the strict observance of a religious scruple in § 2 leads to an inconsistency with the parallel case of § 14 where the current practice is followed without misgivings;³ and in § 13 (and in the parallel in Ṭabarī, 87) the religious scruple, identical here with strict systematic reasoning, is only beginning to assert itself against an old-established practice.⁴

Auzā'ī's explicit systematic reasoning is on the whole rudimentary,⁵ and the legal thought which we can postulate as underlying some of his decisions shows as a rule a rigid formalism, as in § 12, or in § 20 where he defends his unsystematic but seemingly practicable and natural decision by a rigorously literal interpretation of an isnād-less tradition from the Prophet. There is an appreciable amount of systematic reasoning underlying Auzā'ī's doctrine; he shows a positive interest in legal problems as opposed to the actual practice⁶ and, once his doctrine is established as correct, he is prepared to accept its consequences even if they prove undesirable in practice.⁷ How far systematizing went in his time may be gathered, perhaps, from the estimate that the balance between noticeable consistencies and inconsistencies, in the material we have, is just about equal.⁸