that Ka'b ibn Sur (14) was sitting with Umar when a woman came to him and said: "O Commander of the Faithful, I have never seen a man better than my husband. By Allah, he spends his night standing in prayer and his day fasting, even on the hottest days, without breaking his fast." He sought forgiveness for her, praised her, and said: "You are like the virtuous woman (15)." He said: "The woman felt shy and stood up to return, so Ka'b said: "O Commander of the Faithful, why did you not provide justice for the woman against her husband?" He replied: "And what did she complain of?" He said: "She complained of her husband in the strongest manner of complaint." He said: "Did she intend that?" He said: "Yes." He said: "Bring the woman back to me." He then said: "There is no harm in you speaking the truth. This man claims that you came to complain about your husband, that he avoids your bed." She said: "Yes, I am a young woman, and I desire what women desire." So he sent for her husband, and when he arrived, he said to Ka'b: "Judge between them." He said: "The Commander of the Faithful is more deserving to judge between them." He said: "I command you to judge between them, for you have understood of their matter what I did not." He said: "I see that she is one woman (16) among three other women, she (17) being the fourth of them, so I judge for her [to have] three days and their nights (18) for him to worship in, and she has one day and one night." Umar said: "By Allah, your first opinion is not more pleasing to me than the latter. Go, for you are the judge of Basra (19)." Once this is established, he should consult the people of knowledge and integrity; for he who is not such, his word holds no weight regarding the incident, nor should one rely upon his opinion. Sufyan said: "Let your consultants be people of piety and integrity." He should consult both those who agree and those who disagree, and ask them about their evidence, so that the truth may become clear to him.

Section: Consultation here is for the purpose of eliciting the evidence, and he [the judge] knows the truth through Ijtihad (independent legal reasoning). It is not permissible for him to follow another blindly (taqlid) and rule by someone else's opinion, regardless of whether the truth became clear to him but another disagreed with him, or if nothing became clear to him, and regardless of whether the time is short or not. Likewise, it is not permissible for a Mufti to issue a legal opinion based on taqlid.