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In plain terms
Rajih
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Rajih is the view whose evidence appeared stronger to the scholar weighing it.
What it means for me: Rajih is not a label stuck permanently to one answer in every book. A view is rajih to the person who weighed it that way. This is why one scholar prefers one view and another scholar prefers a different one, and both remain within honest scholarship.
Example: One book states the weightier view follows the majority. Another book, on the same question, states the weightier view is the opposite. Both sentences report the writer's own conclusion, not a closed verdict on the question.
Do not confuse with: Mu'tamad, the relied-upon view. Rajih is what one scholar's own study points toward; mu'tamad is what a whole school has already settled on.
If scholars differ: Some scholars hold there is one correct answer to a question, even when it stays unknown. Others hold every qualified scholar who reasoned properly is correct in God's sight. The difference is named here as a difference and not decided; the mufti is the reference.
Learn this word in context.
Related terms
Tarjih
Tarjih is preferring one view or piece of evidence over another for a clear reason — a scholar's task, not the asker's.
Mu'tamad
Mu'tamad is the position later authorities of a school settled on for teaching and issuing fatwas.
Jumhur
Jumhur means the majority: most scholars, or most of the established schools, holding one view against a real minority.
Khilaf
Khilaf is a genuine disagreement among scholars about a ruling, reached for real scholarly reasons rather than carelessness.
Ahwat
Ahwat names the more cautious of two positions on a question.
Taqlid
Taqlid is accepting a qualified scholar's answer and acting on it without examining the evidence behind it yourself.