قال: أجتهد برأيي
He replied: I shall exercise my reasoned legal judgment.
The reported dialogue concerning Muʿadh ibn Jabal's mission to Yemen describes looking first to the Quran, then to the Sunnah, and turning to qualified ijtihad when no ruling is found there. Ajtahidu expresses strenuous, disciplined investigation, not the selection of a preferred answer.
The argument is that analogy becomes relevant when superior sources do not resolve the particular question. The narration is used here in this account of legal method, not for a separate examination of its chain of transmission.