What is your opinion of the one who says, "My madhhab is this, but with evidence"? He claims that following a specific madhhab is obligatory and asserts that the earlier imams were on this method.

The questioner : He says: What is your opinion of the one who says: "I am a follower of a madhhab, but with evidence," and insists on adopting a specific madhhab, and argues that most of the earlier imams—if not all of them—were on this method?

The Shaykh : He says: The earlier imams?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : It appears thatThe questioner : —meaning— he intended one thing, but his wording overtook him, so he conveyed the opposite of what he intended. When he says "the earlier imams," what comes to mind are the mujtahid imams who called their followers to follow them in taqlid and forbade them from following the Book and the Sunnah, and compelled them to follow him exactly, step by step? May they be far from that! If he means by "imams" here the opposite of what the word suggests, namely the scholars who follow those mujtahid imams in taqlid; then in that case, we say: those whom he called imams are of no account as long as they are followers in taqlid. The follower in taqlid, by the admission of the followers in taqlid, has an obligatory duty to follow the statements of the mujtahids. In fact, they explicitly state a phrase with precision, saying: "The evidence of the mujtahid is the Book and the Sunnah, and the evidence of the follower in taqlid is the statement of the imam." The evidence of the follower in taqlid is the statement of the imam, not the statement of Allah and the statement of the Messenger of Allah. The statement of Allah and the statement of the Messenger of Allah is the evidence of the imam who is a mujtahid. As for the evidence of the follower in taqlid, it is "So-and-so the imam said." "Allah said, the Messenger of Allah said"—this is what the follower in taqlid should say.
And we say: We judge you by your own mouth. As long as the madhhab of taqlid obligates you to say what the imam said, we say that all the imams said: Do not follow us in our religion. Do not follow me, or Malik, or Sufyan, or anyone else. Rather, take from where they took. The texts on this are many, and very many. I had mentioned many of the good ones in the introduction to "The Description of the Prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)." Therefore, the statementThe questioner : that the imams ordered this is an error, if not a fabrication against them. As for his saying: "I follow a madhhab or follow a madhhab in taqlid, but if the evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it," we say to him: Has the evidence not become apparent to you until today that it is not permissible for you to take an imam after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)? No one was given infallibility with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Has the evidence not stood for you until today that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah? Just as there is no deity worthy of worship in truth but Allah, so there is no one to be followed in truth but the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).
Have you not yet clarified the truth for yourself? I think in that case the man is deceiving himself, or he is concealing things from his companions by saying: "I am a follower in taqlid of one of the madhahib, but if the evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it." O, Glory be to Allah! If your madhhab—for example—is the Hanafi madhhab, and the Hanafi says that the emergence of a line like the letter alif of blood from a place on your body invalidates and breaks your wudu, and if the evidence becomes apparent to you that this wudu is still valid, you follow it and contradict the madhhab. Why did you not contradict the madhhab that tells you— not on the tongue of the imams, but on the tongue of the followers of the imams—and among that, for example, is the statement of al-Bajuri: "And it is obligatory to follow a scholar from them." Where did this follower in taqlid get this ruling from, when no one from the followers in taqlid or the mujtahid imams said it? They said it while claiming taqlid. They exercised ijtihad and then said what no one from the mujtahids ever said at all.
So we advise thisThe questioner : or the one who reports about himThe questioner : that it is obligatory for him to take as his madhhab the one of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forever and ever. But we do not say to him, as some people think and unjustly and falsely accuse us of saying: "The general Muslim public must exercise ijtihad and understand the Book and the Sunnah directly, and know the authentic hadith from the weak, and the general and the specific, and the absolute and the restricted, and so on." We do not say this. Rather, we say, as we have said on many occasions, that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made the Muslim community, in terms of knowledge, two groups: a group of people of knowledge, and a group who are not people of knowledge. And He obligated each of the two groups with a duty that each must perform. For the people of knowledge, if they are asked, it is obligatory for them to answer. For the others, their duty is to ask: . So you, O follower in taqlid who imposed on yourself the taqlid of an imam or a madhhab from the madhahib, an imposition that Allah did not say, nor His Messenger, nor any imam from the imams of the Muslims, it is obligatory for you to remove from your mind this which you imposed on yourself, and to impose on yourself anew the following of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). But I know that you will say: "I am illiterate, I do not read, I am ignorant." The answer comes to you from the core of the Noble Qur'an in a language that even the common Arab understands; perhaps even the non-Arabs also share with the Arabs in understanding that verse: . So your duty is to ask the scholar to guide you to what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was upon, not to guide you to what Abu Hanifa said if your madhhab is the Hanafi, or what Malik said if your imam is Malik, and the like of that.
So we were commanded to follow the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) made that a protection for people so that if they hold fast to it, they will not go astray or lean to the right or the left. He said (peace and blessings be upon him):
So we ask Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) to keep us alive upon the Book and the Sunnah and to let us die upon that. And our final supplication is: Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And we hope that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) will gather us in another meeting, and perhaps that will be soon. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.