A discussion and dialogue on taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence): Is following the four imams forbidden? And is it obligatory to take directly from the Book and the Sunnah?

The questioner : ... and we wanted to be gathered, of course, if someone is allowed to speak...

The Shaykh: In truth, the session must be organized so that benefit can be derived from it, and...

The questioner: ... the thought, or if we may call it a thought or a method, a path... or it is Sufism... or Sufism, if it is permissible for us to say... or it is various forms... they call them types and forms...

Another questioner: The word "professor" is actually good, meaning organizing it so that one... meaning between directing the answer to the two professors, it is a kind of organization... so that there is not... perhaps, if you allow me, some of the questions, we are coming to benefit, to listen, meaning.

The Shaykh : Welcome and welcome.

The questioner: So, professor, if you would be kind enough to tell us what Sufism is? And what is meant by Sufism? If you want to listen... it would be better like this, and then it becomes...

The Shaykh: ... Professor Yaqub?

The questioner: Professor Yaqub.

The Shaykh: I have no objection. I wanted to say a word, which is short, of course, and that is that if Allah wills, whoever begins speaking has that right, so let him proceed, if Allah wills, and we... all of us are with him and listening, and then if there is any observation, we will express it, without doubt; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: ; so on this basis, the speech of each of us must be, and as Professor Abu Adnan indicated, if someone has a word or a question, he asks for permission, so we escape from chaos and disorder and misunderstanding. If you wish, please proceed.

The questioner: Without doubt, it is preferable that our professor, who is older than us in age and knowledge, may Allah honor him, La ilaha illa Allah before us, without doubt it is a matter of etiquette that he begins before us; this is from one aspect; the aspect of etiquette, the etiquette of the gathering, so that we realize the principle, considering that we carry the banner of the four imams, a sectarian banner, a banner of what the community accepted, and considering what reaches our ears is that the honorable professor has a specific opinion in these matters, so he is the holder of the new opinion; he is the first to give us his opinion, or his position first, or correct what we heard, and after that we will have our opinion.

The Shaykh: So tell us what you heard so we can correct it.

Another questioner: ... I liked it.

The Shaykh: But he, as you heard, referred it to us. Why should we correct what is to be corrected when it is unknown to us? If you wish that, please proceed and explain to us what you heard. In reality, this path by which you opened your speech is a good path; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: , and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) confirms, as is his constant habit and practice, the Qur'an and the Sunnah are twins that do not separate. He adds clarification to the verse and says: . So when you said this beautiful phrase, "so we can correct what we heard"; it is as if the Shaykh is humming and responding to the verse and the hadith, which is verification. Therefore, I say: present what you heard so we can tell you: this is what we worship Allah with and we fear no one but Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), or we say: this is not correct, rather we say: Glory to You, this is a great slander! And this is something we have experienced often with people, unfortunately. The reason, in my belief, is that many Muslims today have not been trained in the etiquette of the Qur'an, nor raised with the upbringing of the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); and therefore you find a man among them, even from some people of knowledge, hears a word and spreads it among people without verifying it, and without fearing that he will fall into this lying which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) indicated in the previous hadith: . I will be brief and say: please, what you heard from us, so we can tell you: true or false.

The questioner: From what we heard, we heard that you say there is no need for taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) of the four imams, and that one should... be independent by taking directly from the Book and the Sunnah to worship Allah (the Exalted). Has this been reported from you? And if it is true, what is your explanation of this statement?

The Shaykh: I think you mean what you are saying, meaning we do not take you by your exact words; because you know, I draw attention to something before I answer your question, on the principle: every question has an answer. So if someone says—for example—who asks me: Do you say that taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is not permissible? We say: a lie. If someone says, who asks: Is taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) obligatory absolutely? We say—also—it is not obligatory, but on the contrary; we say: taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is obligatory, but not originally, rather out of necessity; the original is what the scholars establish, and they are those you referred to at the beginning of my speech, the four imams and others; the original is the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); therefore, before... in the answer, I want you to specify your question; are you asking about permissibility? Are you asking about obligation? What exactly are you asking?

The questioner: We are asking about the prohibition.

The Shaykh: The prohibition of what?

The questioner: The prohibition of following the imams.

The Shaykh: If you are asking about the prohibition of taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), I have already answered you.

The questioner: Okay, and if I am the one asking.

The Shaykh: Is it true that I answered you?

The questioner : You have answered me.

The Shaykh: So we say, I clarify to you; whoever reports from us that we forbid taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is one of two people; either ignorant or feigning ignorance, and as is said, the sweeter of the two is bitter, so he is ignorant or feigning ignorance. And we add to that and say: taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is obligatory, but not for the scholars. Taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is obligatory, but not for the scholars. The scholars, by the consensus of the scholars, are those who take from what Allah said and what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said. As for non-scholars, from this following answer, you will also be assured of what we say. And if I were to reserve myself regarding what you asked or the question about what you asked, it is the word of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) explicit in His Book, when He says: ; so this verse is explicit in its indication that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) considered people or made people, in terms of knowledge and ignorance, two groups; scholars and non-scholars. So upon each of the two groups is an obligation. The obligation of the scholars, if they are asked, is to answer, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said, and he confirmed that in the authentic famous hadith in the Sunan and others: . This is the obligation of the first group, the scholars. The obligation of the other group is to ask the scholars, by the text of the previous verse: .
But here, in truth, we must say it so that the reality of what we worship Allah with (Blessed and Exalted is He) becomes clear to you, and that is that the other group—meaning: non-scholars—upon them is to ask the scholars, not to ask their like or those who are close to them in ignorance, and they may be better than them in that some of them are on a culture or on a light of knowledge, but they are not the first group, the scholars, whom the other group must ask. So we want there to be always and forever, in every age and in every region and in every land, the two groups. We do not believe, and it is impossible, that every individual of this community—especially in this time—every individual is a scholar. This is an impossible matter; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) willed, with a profound wisdom, to make people of various types and groups; so among them is the believer and among them is the disbeliever. Among the believer is the scholar, among the believer is the ignorant, among the believer is the righteous, among the believer is the wicked, and so on. And it is impossible for people to be, as He (the Exalted) said, one community; .
Therefore, to clarify the previous statement, the summary of which is that we believe there are scholars and there are non-scholars, and that it is obligatory for the latter to ask the scholars; for this reason, we say: these questioners must know whom they are asking. They should not ask, as I briefly mentioned earlier, people like themselves, but rather they should ask the people of knowledge. And so it is, as came in an authentic hadith in "Musnad al-Imam Ahmad" and other books of the Sunnah, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent out a detachment, and in accordance with the known Sunnah, he appointed a commander over them. They set out to fight in the cause of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), and they fought the polytheists. Without a doubt, some of them were wounded. One of them had a nocturnal emission and woke up in a state of major ritual impurity. He asked those around him, saying, "My situation is such and such; I am wounded and in a state of major ritual impurity, and I want to perform the full ritual bath. Do you find a dispensation for me so that I do not have to perform the full ritual bath?" They said, "No, you must perform the full ritual bath." The man complied, thinking that they had issued a ruling based on knowledge. The outcome was that the man died because of the wounds... the fever increased... he died.

The questioner : I think because of the full ritual bath?

The Shaykh : Yes, that is it; because he complied with the unjust ruling. When the news of it reached the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he became very angry and said: Did they not ask the people of knowledge? Naturally, they are the people of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. So, this wounded man, this man in a state of major ritual impurity, asked someone he thought was knowledgeable. It became clear in the end, as they say, "after the destruction of Basra," after the man's death, that they were not the people of knowledge whom the common people are obligated to ask, and whom they are obligated to answer; they were not so, as the hadith of the Messenger (peace be upon him) explicitly indicates: ; he cursed them.
So, we believe that Muslims are like this: scholars and laypeople, and each has a role. To believe that every Muslim is obligated to derive the ruling and the specific worship for himself, at least from the Book and the Sunnah, is a clear lie. And we—regrettably—know who spreads these false reports and inserts them into some of their books, misleading the people. What is between him and his Lord, what is in his heart? Because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is the only One who knows what is in the breasts. And we, as the jurists themselves say, and as the authentic hadith indicates, we judge by the apparent, and Allah takes care of the hidden. Is he malicious? Is he ignorant? If he is malicious, he must repent to Allah and return to Him. If he is ignorant, he must learn. As for wronging the innocent... right and left, especially here, I return to you with a question I hinted at at the beginning of my speech; it seems that you—Professor—have not read anything of my writings.

The questioner : A little.

The Shaykh : If you had read, you would not have needed a question like this. And I also know the reason for your lack of reading. The reason is the charge that comes to you from those you trust, who frighten you away from reading the books of this afflicted man. But I advise and say: the believer who is well-versed in the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah is not overcome by reading... and the most corrupt book on the face of the earth; because the light of faith and the light of knowledge in his heart illuminate for him the path of every road he takes. So, for example, if we are from the people of knowledge, it never harms us to read the Torah and the Gospel, which are certainly what has been altered and changed by the text of our Lord's Book; why? Because there is this type that we received from the Book and the guidance by which we were guided from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who was always saying in his sermons: So, if a scholar from among the Muslim scholars read a book by this Al-Albani; why would he not read it? Suppose it is misguidance from its beginning to its end, and I say this explicitly: whoever says this is a disbeliever; why? Because he will find hundreds of hadiths, if we say thousands of hadiths, and authentic ones from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), in Al-Albani's book; so how can it be said that this book is disbelief and misguidance?
It might be said, and I am a man who wants to be fair with those who ask us, it might be said: "By Allah, in such and such a sin, in such and such a hadith, there is a passive voice or a distortion, or so on and so forth." As for... speaking about a book written by a Muslim man who believes in Allah and His Messenger, and above that calls to following the Book and the Sunnah, which our Lord called us to and our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) encouraged; this is what a knowledgeable Muslim does. An ignorant Muslim might do it, and in the worst case, a malicious scholar might do it. Therefore, I think I have answered you and added to the answer beyond what you asked. If you have any comment on this speech, please proceed, or ask another question, or we ask a question from our side, as you wish.

The questioner : ... My lord, in this speech you spoke about the scholars and said: the principle is to take.

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : The principle is to take from the Book and the Sunnah, except for following a scholar without knowing his evidence out of necessity, out of necessity for the common people, and taking for the people of knowledge. Here is one. The second, I said: and without a doubt, I want in every city and every country and every time that there be a scholar. I said: and without a doubt, it is upon the common people to ask the people of knowledge. So, here, the people of knowledge in these three sentences, are they... or are they multiple? That is, are the people of knowledge who take from the Book and the Sunnah, who have their conditions and their descriptions that qualify them for derivation and independent legal reasoning, are we obligated not to ask or not to seek a ruling except from one who has these descriptions, for example? And is it required that there be one in every city who possesses these descriptions, even if we are forced?

The Shaykh : ... .

The questioner : Praise be to Allah.
Even if we are forced to dress this dress in any person? This is the first section, I want an answer to it. The second section: you said that there might be... you did not read and you addressed me; because there are those who disturb the charge that comes to you by distorting this innocent or accused man. Then the speech continued until you said that these books might be described as misguidance and disbelief, or the second. And I believe that in most cases the second is more appropriate; first, to have a good opinion of the Muslims, second: it is the reality; because we are not blind to the point that if we are told about a specific book containing thousands of hadiths that it is said: this is a book of disbelief, and then we say: Yes! So to say the first is to say by it... as for the second... therefore, there is no correction of the concept of the image from the second point, nor is it an explanation of the corruption of the people of knowledge according to these three conditions you mentioned in your speech.

The Shaykh : I think from your speech there are many questions without a doubt, so I hope you repeat question number one.

The questioner : I repeat...?

The Shaykh : No, not the same questions; because it is difficult to cover them all. Rather, ask the question so I can answer you, then follow up with whatever you wish and I will answer you, and so on until you get this matter... what? In the end, a fruit.

The questioner : I think the first question is that the first section of it... the second section was an explanation to you in a specific position, and an attempt to improve the opinion... So the question is the first one, which is about the people of knowledge, and the second... may Allah will it, we will be among those who listen to the statement and follow the best of it.