Is the hadith from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) authentic: (If the imam exerts his judgment and errs, he has one reward, and if he is correct, he has two rewards)?

The Shaykh: Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own selves and from the badness of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He leaves to misguide, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger, , , . As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are their innovations, and every innovation is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.
The questioner asks here: Is the hadith from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) authentic: ? If the hadith is authentic and the ijtihad is erroneous, is the Muslim then obligated to perform ijtihad?
We have spoken about this issue many times, and the question is repeated, so do not listen to it. The reason for this is that there are people—unfortunately—who are malicious and stir up this problem among people with much slander and fabrication against the innocent; therefore, it is necessary to answer this question in its two parts.
The first part: The hadith is authentic; because it is what al-Bukhari narrated in his "Sahih" from the hadith of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .
The second part of the question: Is the Muslim obligated to perform ijtihad?
The answer: He is obligated and not obligated; meaning that this varies according to the Muslim's knowledge, culture, ability, and readiness. All of this must be considered when it is said: It is obligatory for the Muslim to exert his judgment. I was, as you heard, perhaps in the Holy City of Madinah, and there are people who call with our call to the Book and the Sunnah, but they are beginners on the path in need of much knowledge, so they say that ijtihad is obligatory for every Muslim without any detail. Detailing is obligatory for every Muslim scholar to perform so that he does not fall into excess or negligence. So I said to these and others previously here:
The original ruling regarding taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is that it is not permissible, and the original ruling is that any Muslim, whoever he is, must proceed in his Islamic life with certainty and insight into his religion, as our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) said in His Book: . If the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) is a report on the tongue of His Prophet , and if this is a general text that includes every follower of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), as He (the Exalted) said: ; if this text is a comprehensive text for every Muslim, then there is no doubt in the mind of every Muslim that it is obligatory for every Muslim to have insight into his religion; this is the original ruling; there is no difference in this between a scholar, a student, and one who is not a student, as came in some athar (reports) stopping at a Companion: "Be a scholar, or a student, or a listener, and do not be the fourth, lest you perish." There is no difference in this among the classes of Muslims in terms of their culture; because it is obligatory for each of them to have insight into his religion due to the previous verse and others that convey its meaning. But perhaps not every Muslim can have insight in every issue; so at that time, he does what he is able to do.
And I said to those individuals: Many of the mujtahid (scholars qualified to derive rulings) scholars follow others in some cases out of necessity, so the mujtahid scholars follow others sometimes, but they only do so out of necessity. And I also said: Taqlid, in that it contradicts insight into the religion, is not more strictly forbidden than what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) explicitly forbade in the Qur'an, such as His saying: to the end of the verse. But this prohibition is tied and linked to ability; because the rule says; the Qur'anic rule says: . If a person is in a situation where he cannot do anything but commit one of these three forbidden things mentioned in the previous verse: , and he is forced to do one of these forbidden things; then it is not forbidden for him; due to His saying in the completion of the verse: . From this verse and others came the Islamic jurisprudential rule: "Necessities permit the prohibited."
I return to say: Taqlid is not more strictly forbidden than these forbidden things and their like. So if these forbidden things are permitted out of necessity, then taqlid is also permitted out of necessity. Therefore, just as it is not permissible to exaggerate in forbidding taqlid absolutely in all cases and situations for what we mentioned earlier; the state of necessity is excluded from the prohibition; likewise, it is obviously not permissible for us to make the state of Muslims in general, including the scholars, shaykhs, and people of knowledge and virtue as they say, a state of necessity; meaning as if we said: Muslims today are forced to eat these forbidden things. This is what a person says; because they live in a normal situation, so they are able to eat from what Allah has made lawful for them other than these forbidden things; so how can it be said that they—in this state—are forced to eat carrion, blood, and the flesh of the pig?! No person with a grain of intellect says this. Likewise, it is never correct for us to reverse the situation and say: Muslims today, all of them, including the people of knowledge, are forced to follow others because they cannot perform ijtihad; this is reversing what the situation of the Islamic world should be. The Islamic world, since the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him), had people in classes: a scholar, a student, and a listener. So for us to make all the classes today the lowest class, which is only a listener who hears the word and picks it up and acts on it, as for where it came from? What is its origin? What is its detail? What is its evidence? Is it the Book? Is it the Sunnah? Is it analogical reasoning? And is this analogical reasoning clear or hidden? Is it valid analogical reasoning? Is it analogical reasoning of priority? Or something similar? This lower class, the class of listeners, cannot do this; rather, the class of people of knowledge can do it. So taqlid, at the time when it is forbidden and it is obligatory for every Muslim to escape from it to the best of his ability; for Allah does not burden a soul except with what it can bear.
On this basis, we must understand this issue so that we do not fall into excess and negligence as we mentioned. Not every Muslim is obligated to perform ijtihad, but the one for whom ijtihad is obligatory is the one who is able. But here there is a middle rank between taqlid and ijtihad; because we mentioned earlier that every Muslim must have insight into his religion by the text of the previous general verse. But insight into the religion can be obtained by a way that is neither ijtihad nor the taqlid that is originally forbidden. It is not by the way of ijtihad that not everyone can do except the special ones among them, and it is not by the way of taqlid whose original ruling is prohibition. There is a middle way between the two ways, ijtihad and taqlid; which is the way of ittibaa' (following). This is a scientific term that many of the old and new researchers have followed, such as the Hafiz of Andalusia, "Abu 'Umar ibn al-'Abd al-Barr." He made knowledge three classes: ijtihad, ittibaa', and taqlid. And those who came after him from the people of research, such as "Ibn Taymiyyah" and "Ibn al-Qayyim" and others, followed this.
The method of following (ittiba') is the solution to the problem of eliminating taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), which has spread and become widespread in the lands of Islam. It is not the method of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), as the deluded, rebellious, and fabricating people of today think. It is possible to eliminate taqlid, which is originally forbidden, not only through ijtihad, but through another method that is less demanding: the method of following. The difference between the path of ijtihad and the path of following is very easy and clear. It is that ijtihad means that the Muslim scholar must have knowledge of the Arabic language and its literature, and the sciences of the Shari'ah, such as the science of hadith, tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis), usul al-fiqh (the principles of jurisprudence), and the like. In reality, even those who have studied these sciences cannot achieve or practically apply them in their scientific lives. But following is that when you are unable to perform ijtihad, you ask the people of ijtihad, the scholars of knowledge and jurisprudence in religion, about the issue. They present it to you with certainty that it is forbidden, or with certainty that it is permissible, or with certainty that it is obligatory, or that it is recommended, or other rulings of the Shari'ah. You can ask them for the evidence. If they present the evidence to you, your heart is reassured by this ruling, because it was presented accompanied by a Shari'ah proof. This is unlike if they say to you: "This is forbidden" or "This is lawful," for then they have only presented their opinion naked and stripped of Shari'ah evidence. The one who takes this opinion—whether prohibition or otherwise—without it being accompanied by evidence is practicing taqlid, and this is what we should strive to get rid of as much as possible. The one who takes the issue accompanied by its Shari'ah evidence from the Book or the Sunnah or ijtihad is the one who follows. And the one who presents the evidence while being a jurist in it from the Book and the Sunnah is the mujtahid (a scholar qualified to derive rulings). Therefore, it is not natural that we continue to ask this question: "Is every Muslim obligated to perform ijtihad?"
We say: Every Muslim is obligated to be clear-sighted in his religion. As for those obligated to perform ijtihad, they are the scholars. And the scholars of today, if they are found, the fair-minded ones among them in this issue explicitly state that they are not among the scholars. I mean, they do not disclose this statement unless scientific debates force them to say frankly: "We are not scholars." So where are these scholars? By their own admission, they have become a thing of the past. And so they admit that the door of ijtihad has been closed. This means that the entire Muslim world, or at least the majority of it, lives in ignorance, not in a state of ijtihad. This is a self-evident matter. Because in the early times, not all Muslim individuals were mujtahids, and they did not live in a state of following with clear-sightedness, because they lived in a state of taqlid. Did Islam command it this way? Did it say: on taqlid or on clear-sightedness? And you must remember that among the points of agreement is that the word taqlid equals ignorance. Taqlid is ignorance; there is no disagreement whatsoever between a Salafi (a follower of the Salaf) and a Khalafi (a follower of the later generations) on this issue. All scholars say: Taqlid is ignorance. Therefore, it is stated in some books of the Hanafi school that the muqallid (one who practices taqlid) is not appointed to the position of judge. The commentator explained that the muqallid is ignorant, and the one who should be appointed as judge must be knowledgeable of the Book and the Sunnah; that is, he must be a mujtahid. Therefore, the muqallid is not appointed as judge because he is ignorant. And as I said, taqlid is ignorance by the consensus of scholars. So if it is said: "There is no ijtihad left," that means the Muslim world today lives in very deep ignorance!
What is the benefit, then, of the existence of the Book and the Sunnah among the people, and those who are supposed to have knowledge and study of this Book and this Sunnah?
They say: No one can understand the Book and the Sunnah. So we live as muqallids. In fact, the matter has reached the point where some of them take pride in being a muqallid, forgetting that taqlid is ignorance. Because I think that a person with even a grain of intellect cannot take pride in his ignorance. But he took pride in his taqlid. And that is only because he forgot what the meaning of taqlid is. Because the word taqlid is not explicit in giving the meaning understood from the word ignorance. So no one takes pride in ignorance, but he may make an excuse, saying: "By Allah, I do not know."
But for someone to take pride in taqlid—which equals ignorance, as we mentioned—is something that some doctors (professors) in the modern era have fallen into. Because he forgot that taqlid is ignorance itself. Therefore, I hope that this is clear to you all. And let the one present convey to the one absent that you should not ask too much: "Is every Muslim obligated to perform ijtihad?" Every Muslim is obligated to follow. As for ijtihad, those who are thought to be scholars cannot perform it today, by their own admission. So what do we say about the students who graduate under the hands of these scholars who are muqallids—that is, they are ignorant? And as one of them said: They are scholars in name only, not in reality!
This is the state of scholars in the modern era. So what is the state of the students who graduate under the hands of these scholars, who are scholars in name only by their own admission? Therefore, memorize this verse and remember its general implication: . It is obligatory for every Muslim who follows the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) with true following to be clear-sighted in his religion. And unfortunately, this is not achieved except by those who are able to study the Book and the Sunnah, and to clarify the truth from what people have differed on, so that they present this truth to the people. Perhaps what helps in this is that if the Muslim majority knows this truth, and because it is obligatory for them to be on clear evidence of their religion and clear-sighted in their affairs, perhaps what helps in spreading this clarification is that the majority demands of those they think are scholars that they clarify and explain the truth to them, so that they live on clear evidence and clear-sightedness in their religion.
This is the answer to the previous question: "Is the Muslim obligated to perform ijtihad?" In brief: Every Muslim is obligated to follow. As for ijtihad, it is obligatory for the one who is able to perform it. As for taqlid, it is forbidden in its entirety except in cases of dire necessity. This is the summary of the answer.