Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī – It is More Appropriate that the Ambiguous & Abrogated Reports Are Not Transmitted

Imām Nāṣir al-Dīn Abu ‘l-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥusaynī al-Samarqandī al-Ḥanafī (d.556AH) mentions in Kitāb al-Kashf ʿan Ta’wīl al-Āy wa ‘l-Akhbār al-Mutashābihah:

[Imām] Muḥammad [ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d.189AH)] says in Kitāb al-Kasb:

It is more appropriate that the ambiguous (mutashābih) and abrogated (mansūkh) reports are not transmitted, thus:

• removing the dangers of disagreement;
• cutting the root of controversy;
• safeguarding the weak (of faith) from transgression and straying, both in belief and action;
• treating the source of tribulations; and
• destroying the instruments of the people of falsehood.

Note: Kitāb al-Kasb hasn’t reached us today as an independent work – only the commentary (sharḥ) of al-Sarakhsī and the abridgement (mukhtaṣar) ascribed to ibn Samāʿah have reached us.

Kitāb al-Kashf is an individual and independent work which has reached our Ḥanafī scholars in this field.

– Mustafa Önder Çelen al-Maghnīsī

Taken and translated from here