Tarjih

Tarjih is preferring one view or piece of evidence over another for a clear reason — a scholar's task, not the asker's.

What it means for me: When you see 'the weightier view is...' in a piece of research, someone already did this work of weighing. Your task is not to weigh two scholars' opinions yourself. It is choosing carefully whom to ask. Read Two scholars disagree, whom do I follow?.

Example: A research paper lays out three views with their evidence, then closes: what appears weightier is this. That closing line is the author's own conclusion. It does not erase the other two views from the page.

Do not confuse with: Mu'tamad, the relied-upon view. Tarjih is one scholar's own weighing of the evidence; mu'tamad is the view a whole school has settled on for its followers.

If scholars differ: Scholars agree that tarjih only applies when two pieces of evidence cannot both be reconciled. They differ on which of the recognized ways of weighing should come first. The difference is named here as a difference and not decided; the mufti is the reference.