What is your opinion of the one who says: “I follow a school of jurisprudence, but I argue with evidence,” and says: “All the previous imams were like that, if not most of them”?

The questioner : What is your opinion of the one who says: “I follow a school of jurisprudence, but with evidence,” and insists on adopting a specific school, and argues that most of the previous imams, if not all of them, were on this method?

The Shaykh : He says the previous imams?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : It appears that the questioner intended one thing, but his wording overtook him, so he conveyed the opposite of what he intended! When he says “the previous imams,” the first thing that comes to mind is the imams who exercised independent legal reasoning... that they called their followers to follow them blindly and forbade them from following the Book and the Sunnah, and compelled them to follow them exactly, step for step. May they be far from that. And if he means by “imams” here something other than what the word suggests; that is, the scholars who follow those imams who exercised independent legal reasoning; then in that case we say: There is no consideration for those whom he called imams, as long as they are followers of a scholar without knowing his evidence, and the follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence, by the admission of the followers themselves, has an obligatory duty to follow the statements of the scholars who exercised independent legal reasoning; to the extent that they explicitly state a phrase with precision: they say, “The evidence of the scholar who exercises independent legal reasoning is the Book and the Sunnah, and the evidence of the follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence 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 exercises independent legal reasoning, whereas the evidence of the follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence is: ‘My imam said so-and-so,’ ‘My imam said so-and-so.’ ‘Allah said, the Messenger of Allah said’—this is what the follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence should say. And we say: We judge you by your own mouth; as long as the school of following a scholar without knowing his evidence obligates you to say what the imam said; then we say that all the imams said: Do not follow us blindly in our religion, do not follow me, or Malik, or Sufyan, or anyone else, but only take from where they took. And the texts on this are many, and very many. And I had mentioned much of the good of them in the introduction to “The Description of the Prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)”; therefore, the questioner’s statement that the imams ordered this is an error, if not a fabrication against them. As for his statement: “I follow a school or follow a school blindly, but if the evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it,” we say to him: What evidence has 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 has been 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 this reality for yourself?!
I think in that case that the man is deceiving himself, or he is concealing things from his companions by saying: “I am a follower of a school of jurisprudence, but if the evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it.” O, the glory of Allah!! If your school—for example—is the Hanafi school, and the Hanafi school says that the emergence of a line resembling the letter alif from blood in a place on your body invalidates and breaks your ablution; if the evidence becomes apparent to you that this ablution is still valid, do you follow it and contradict the school? Why do you not contradict the school that is not on the tongue of the imams, but rather on the tongue of those who follow the imams? And among that is also the statement of al-Bajuri:
“And it is obligatory to follow a scholar from them”
Where did this follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence get this ruling, when no one from the followers of scholars or the imams who exercised independent legal reasoning said it? They said it while claiming to follow a scholar without knowing his evidence; they exercised independent legal reasoning and then said what no one from the scholars who exercised independent legal reasoning ever said. So we advise this questioner, or the one about whom the questioner is reporting, that it is obligatory for him to adopt as his imam 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 accuse us unjustly and falsely, that we say: It is necessary for the general Muslim people to exercise independent legal reasoning and understand the Book and the Sunnah directly, and to know the authentic hadith from the weak, and the general from the specific, and the absolute from 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 upon each of the two groups a duty that all of them must perform.
If the people of knowledge are asked, it is obligatory for them to answer. The duty of the others is to ask, . So you, O follower of a scholar without knowing his evidence, who have imposed upon yourself the following of an imam or a school of jurisprudence, a duty that Allah has not imposed, nor His Messenger, nor any imam from the imams of the Muslims; it is obligatory for you to remove from your mind this thing that you have imposed upon yourself, and to impose upon 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 person among the common people understands, and perhaps the non-Arabs also participate 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 “Abu Hanifa said” if your school is the Hanafi school, or “Malik said” if your imam is Malik, and the like.
So we were only 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 the people, if they hold fast to it, so that they do not go astray and do not be led right and left. He said (may the prayer and peace of Allah 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 last supplication is: All praise is to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And we hope that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) will gather us at another time, and perhaps that will be soon. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.