A Guiding Word on the Disagreement Among Scholars

Question:
Shaykh Salih complains about the disagreement among scholars, so is there a word to begin this meeting with? May Allah reward you with good.

Answer:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and all his Companions. As for the disagreement of scholars, it is of two types. The first type is disagreement in the fundamentals and creed, and this is not permissible, because the creed must be a matter of consensus, for the creed is taken from the Book and the Sunnah and from what the Salaf of the Ummah were upon, and there is no disagreement in this, praise be to Allah. Because the creed is based on divine revelation, it is not a place for independent legal reasoning and disagreement, but rather it is received and taken from the Book and the Sunnah, and it is obligatory to agree upon it and not to disagree in it.
As for disagreement in matters of Islamic jurisprudence and derivation, there is no blame in disagreeing in them, because it follows the capacity of people and their scholarly readiness to understand the issues from the Book and the Sunnah, and Allah the Exalted and Supreme grants each person of understanding and capability what is specific to him, so disagreement in matters of independent legal reasoning is inevitable. However, it is obligatory to act according to what the evidence indicates from the independent legal reasoning of the scholars. One looks at the independent legal reasoning of the scholars and presents it to the evidence; so whatever is supported by the evidence from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), it is obligatory to act upon it, and whatever contradicts the evidence, it is not acted upon. So the criterion, therefore, is the evidence in terms of action. As for independent legal reasoning and derivation, which is for the one who is a mufti and has the scholarly qualifications for independent legal reasoning and derivation, there is no harm in him exercising independent legal reasoning and acting according to what his independent legal reasoning reaches and what his understanding prevails regarding the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And this disagreement in jurisprudential issues existed in the time of the Companions and those after them, and they did not bite each other, and this disagreement did not cause them to hate each other, or to be estranged from each other, or to cut off relations with one another. Rather, they were brothers united, even if they differed in some theoretical issues, because there is no denial of matters of independent legal reasoning. But as we mentioned, action is based on what is established by the evidence, or what prevails by the evidence in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Yes.