Does independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) apply to matters of belief?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner asks: Does independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) apply to matters of belief, or are they restricted to the texts?
Answer:
Matters that Allah has explicitly declared forbidden or permissible are not subject to independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), such as[Al-Ma'idah 5:3], such as [Al-Baqarah 2:275], [Al-Ma'idah 5:1]. Their ruling remains as it is; it is not changed or altered, and no independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) applies to them. This is one aspect. The second aspect is matters of creed, which are based on textual evidence and are not subject to independent legal reasoning (ijtihad); rather, they are established upon evidence. Yes.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner asks: Does independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) apply to matters of belief, or are they restricted to the texts?
Answer:
Matters that Allah has explicitly declared forbidden or permissible are not subject to independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), such as
Prohibited to you are dead animals
حُرِّمَتْ عَلَيْكُمُ الْمَيْتَةُBut Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest
وَأَحَلَّ اللَّهُ الْبَيْعَ وَحَرَّمَ الرِّبَاLawful for you are the animals of grazing livestock
أُحِلَّتْ لَكُم بَهِيمَةُ الْأَنْعَامِ
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [130 -560] هل يدخل الاجتهاد في مسائل الاعتقاد؟ - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.