Then al-Khaṭṭābī said: The people have differed regarding the ruling on the _muṣarrāh_ (a milch animal whose milk has been left un-milked for several days to deceive the buyer):

A group of jurists held that he returns it and returns with it a _ṣāʿ_ of dates, acting upon the apparent meaning of the hadith. This is the view of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū ʿUbayd, and Abū Thawr.

Ibn Abī Laylā and Abū Yūsuf said: He returns the value of the milk.

Abū Ḥanīfah said: If he has milked the sheep, he may not return it, but he seeks compensation from the seller for its defect and keeps it.

Those who adopted this view argued that this report contradicts the established principles, because it involves valuing a destroyed thing by something other than currency, because it nullifies the return of an equivalent for that which has an equivalent, and because it values both little and much milk at a single value and a single measure.

They also adduced the Prophet's saying, peace be upon him: "Profit goes with liability."

The Shaykh [i.e., al-Khaṭṭābī] said: The principle is that when a hadith is established from the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, it is obligatory to act upon it, and it becomes a principle in itself. It is incumbent upon us to accept the uninterpreted portions of the sacred law just as it is incumbent upon us to accept its interpreted portions. The principles only became principles because the sacred law brought them. The hadith of the _muṣarrāh_ has come through sound chains of transmission, the most famous of which is this one, so acting upon it is obligatory, and abandoning it for the sake of other principles is no more warranted than abandoning those principles for its sake.

Moreover, valuing a destroyed thing by something other than currency is found in some established principles. Among them: the blood-money for a life, which is one hundred camels; and among them: the _ghurrah_ (compensation) for a fetus.

It has also come that little and much are valued at a single value, as in the compensation for a _mūḍiḥah_ (a head wound exposing the bone), for it may sometimes cover more than the area of the head, in which case five camels are due, and sometimes it may be the size of a fingertip, yet five camels are due all the same. Likewise, the blood-money for fingers is equal, despite the differences in the degrees of their beauty and benefit.

And the Sunnah has come equating the blood-money for the tongue, the two eyes, the two hands, and the two feet.

Then he said: As for the report "Profit goes with liability," its mode of expression is general, whereas the report of the _muṣarrāh_ came as specific to a particular ruling, and the specific prevails over the general.