What is the ruling on criticizing scholars?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
What is your advice to those who criticize the scholars who are upon the methodology of the righteous predecessors, and who say that we should not take knowledge from them, claiming that they are not infallible?
Answer:
Yes, scholars are not infallible, but we take knowledge from them because they say, "Allah said" and "His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said." They do not bring anything from themselves; they bring things from the Infallible (peace and blessings be upon him). They teach us the Qur'an and they teach us the Sunnah, and both are protected from error. The Qur'an and the Sunnah are protected from error. As for fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the statements of scholars, these are presented to the evidence. What agrees with the evidence is taken, and what contradicts the evidence is left. Yes.
What is your advice to those who criticize the scholars who are upon the methodology of the righteous predecessors, and who say that we should not take knowledge from them, claiming that they are not infallible?
Answer:
Yes, scholars are not infallible, but we take knowledge from them because they say, "Allah said" and "His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said." They do not bring anything from themselves; they bring things from the Infallible (peace and blessings be upon him). They teach us the Qur'an and they teach us the Sunnah, and both are protected from error. The Qur'an and the Sunnah are protected from error. As for fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the statements of scholars, these are presented to the evidence. What agrees with the evidence is taken, and what contradicts the evidence is left. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ما حكم الطعن في العلماء؟ للشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.