The Change of Fatwa with the Change of Time and Place

Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Does the fatwa change with the change of time and place? And is it authentic from al-Shafi'i?

Answer:
A fatwa changes with changes in understanding and evidence according to desire or time; this does not change the ruling of the Shari'ah. What changes the ruling of the Shari'ah is when a person has an opinion, and then another opinion becomes clear to him later, and the hadith allows for both this and that. This is not a return from the first opinion, but rather he has adopted another possibility from the hadith. This is not a return from the fatwa. For this reason, Imam al-Shafi'i has two madhhabs: the old madhhab and the new madhhab. And Imam Ahmad has several narrations from him according to his ijtihad. A person does not say, "I have done my ijtihad and that is it," and then freeze, not reflecting and not searching. If something becomes clear to him, he acts upon it, even if he had said something different before.
Except if the error becomes apparent to him. If it becomes apparent to him that it is an error, he returns from the error. But as long as the matter is possible that this is correct and that is correct, it is as 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "That was according to what we judged, and this is according to what we judge."