Restricting oneself to the people of hadith and abandoning the books of fiqh
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Question:
A questioner says: One of the students of knowledge told me, “Do not trouble yourself by reading the books of fiqh. You should stick to the people of hadith, for they are closer to the truth and less prone to difficulty.”
Answer:
Fiqh is derived from hadith, my brother. The fiqh of the people of the Sunnah is derived from hadith. One does not disdain fiqh unless he is either an ignorant person or a person who claims to exercise independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) in this time, yet he is not qualified for ijtihad and does not possess the conditions of the mujtahids. He has no choice but to follow a scholar, but he should do so while seeking out the evidence. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh,
A questioner says: One of the students of knowledge told me, “Do not trouble yourself by reading the books of fiqh. You should stick to the people of hadith, for they are closer to the truth and less prone to difficulty.”
Answer:
Fiqh is derived from hadith, my brother. The fiqh of the people of the Sunnah is derived from hadith. One does not disdain fiqh unless he is either an ignorant person or a person who claims to exercise independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) in this time, yet he is not qualified for ijtihad and does not possess the conditions of the mujtahids. He has no choice but to follow a scholar, but he should do so while seeking out the evidence. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh,
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل وأما ما أفتى به الحسن وإبراهيم النخعي ومالك في إحدى الروايتين عنه — islamhouse.com (56:46)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.