Is the practice of the people of Madinah a proof, even if it contradicts the Sunnah?

The questioner : ... regarding the practice of the people of Madinah, even if it contradicts... is this...?

The Shaykh : No, the brother is asking that some scholars say: the practice of the people of Madinah is a proof, even if it contradicts the Sunnah and the authentic hadith.
We say: No, because the people of Madinah, despite their virtue and their proximity to the era of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), are not all the Muslims; they are a group of Muslims. And the verse, as you heard, does not specify; it says: How, in that case, do we reverse the issue, when you have heard that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) commanded us to follow the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) just as He commanded us to follow the Qur'an? So we say: No, we do not follow the authentic hadith if it contradicts the practice of the people of Madinah, but rather we follow the practice of the people of Madinah even if it contradicts the authentic hadith. This is what some scholars have said; meaning, acting according to what the people of Madinah were upon, even if it contradicts the authentic hadith, is what some scholars have said. But in reality, this is among the opinions in which scholars have differed. For example, Imam Malik is the only one who adopted this view... from him; that it is obligatory to act according to what the people of Madinah were upon, even if that contradicts the authentic hadith. But we have other scholars who are in the rank of Malik in knowledge, sincerity, asceticism, piety, and other such noble qualities, who said: No, the practice of a group, or a community, or the people of a town in the lands of Islam is not a proof against the Book and the Sunnah. Rather, the proof is the Book and the Sunnah. However, if the Muslims, whether from Madinah, Makkah, Kufah, Basrah, and so on, agree on something, then the proof comes here. But if it is a group among them, and if someone were to say: No, I say that what the people of Makkah agreed upon is the proof; this would be a cause of disagreement and conflict among the Muslims. And here comes the verse I have mentioned more than once; which is His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): .
So now we are in dispute over this issue, may Allah forbid, is the practice of the people of Madinah a proof or not? Malik said: It is a proof. Abu Hanifah said, al-Shafi'i said, Ahmad said: It is not a proof. Rather, the proof is the Book and the Sunnah and the path of all the believers, without specifying a group or preferring one group over another. Moreover, what weakens and undermines the issue of using the practice of the people of Madinah as a proof is that the previous problem we quoted from some scholars of usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence) arises, when they described ijma' (scholarly consensus) as the consensus of the Ummah of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Then some of them conceded from this definition to a narrower definition and said: the consensus of the scholars of the Muslims in all parts of the world. Now we say: the consensus of the people of Madinah. How can the consensus of the people of Madinah be known, when we said earlier that there may be scholars who contradict the prevailing opinion in Madinah because they are obscure scholars, not the famous ones? So it is not possible to know the practice of the people of Madinah by one hundred percent. It is possible to know the practice of the majority of the scholars of Madinah, but knowing the opinion of all the scholars of the people of Madinah is not possible; especially regarding that time when means of communication with individuals were not as available as they are today.
Therefore, the majority of Muslim scholars are of the opinion that the practice of the people of Madinah is not used as a proof, except in one case: where there is no hadith contradicting them, and there are no other Muslim scholars in Makkah, Kufah, or Basrah contradicting them; so there is no doubt that the matter in that case falls within the path of the believers. But assuming the matter as it came in the question, where the practice of the people of Madinah is on one thing, and the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is on another; and we leave acting according to the hadith for the practice of the people of Madinah; this is contrary to all the texts that were previously presented and explained.
Please proceed.