What is the ruling on independent legal reasoning in religion?

The questioner : ...the disagreement among Muslims regarding the day of fasting?

The Shaykh : ...the day of fasting?
I say, what did we see regarding independent legal reasoning? And then the disagreement among Muslims regarding the day of fasting?
Independent legal reasoning is like jihad; both will continue until the Day of Resurrection. What is the meaning of independent legal reasoning? It means exerting effort to understand the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. If we say, as many of the later scholars have said, that the door of independent legal reasoning was closed since the fourth century, and that there is no independent legal reasoning after the fourth century, then that means we have blocked a very great path of goodness for the Islamic world, for the students of knowledge in it, and indeed for its scholars: namely, understanding the religion. You know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to say: . Understanding the religion is comprehension, not merely transmitting from others. As reported in "Sahih al-Bukhari" from the hadith of Abu Juhayfa, he asked Ali: "Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) give you, the people of the House, something that He did not give to the people?" Meaning, from knowledge, as is common among many of the common people and some of the specialists, that there is a book called "al-Jafar" composed by Ali ibn Abi Talib containing secrets and matters of the unseen and the like. Such a book has no basis, and this hadith invalidates it: "Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) give you, the people of the House, something that He did not give to the people?" He said: "No, except for understanding that Allah grants to a servant in His Book, and except for what is in the sheath of my sword." And he took out some papers from the sheath of the sword and read from them some hadiths he had received from the Messenger (peace be upon him), in which it is stated that Madinah is a sanctuary like Makkah, and in it specifically: .
The point of this authentic hadith is that Ali says: We, the people of the House, despite the virtue of our connection to the Messenger (peace be upon him), were not given knowledge that was not given to the people, except for whom Allah (Mighty and Majestic) grants understanding that He gives to this servant in His Book.
If we say that the door of independent legal reasoning is closed, that means the door of understanding from Allah and His Messenger is closed. This contradicts all the verses that command Muslims to reflect, look, and think, and opposes many hadiths, in some of which—for example—He (may prayer and peace be upon him) said: . What is the meaning of a scholar? It means a jurist. And what is the meaning of a jurist? It means one who understands, meaning by the Book and the Sunnah. . In reality, this has brought many great calamities upon the Islamic world. The practical, real meaning of closing the door of understanding from Allah and the Messenger is that the scholars, let alone those below them, no longer study the Qur'an with a study of comprehension, and no longer study the Sunnah with a study of comprehension. In fact, many of them say: We read the Book and the Sunnah for blessing, not for understanding; because they say that people like us cannot understand the Book and the Sunnah. Thus, they have closed upon themselves a great door of knowledge. So it is fitting for them and their masses that the saying of the Messenger (may prayer and peace be upon him) in the previous hadith applies to them: ; that is, without understanding from the Book and the Sunnah, so they went astray themselves and led astray the others who ask.
So it is no surprise that we hear today many fatwas that contradict the clear text of the Book and the Sunnah. Why? Because there is no longer knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah. It is either following the scholars before us exactly, without presenting this following to the Book and the Sunnah, so that we are, as stated in the previous verse, upon clear evidence; or it is moving from following to independent legal reasoning without restriction or condition, without relying on the Book and the Sunnah, but merely as one sees it.
So today, for example, we live in an era of fatwas that permit riba (usury or interest), claiming that a little riba is permissible. We live in a time in which such self-styled jurists permit what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade in dozens of hadiths, and the scholars agreed on the prohibition of that, with differences among them in detail. For example, images, whether in making, depicting, or possessing. This affliction has spread in the homes of Muslims, so there is hardly a Muslim home without many images, some of which may be indecent. In fact, I have noticed that images have begun to seep into the houses of Allah, the mosques. Perhaps some of you remember seeing in the mosque what we call here "the calendar" or "the almanac," the one that contains, for example, the times of prayer, especially the Ramadan imsakiyyah. You find there, on... in an image, which may have a type of sanctity in the hearts of Muslims, like the Ka'bah, for example. But the Ka'bah is depicted, and around it are the circumambulators. Images have been brought even into the houses of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). How is this? From the philosophy that these are photographic images, not hand-drawn images. The hand-drawn images are the ones Allah forbade through His Prophet, while photographic images are things that occurred in the modern era, so the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not address them. This is a lack of understanding and lack of jurisprudence in the religion. The reason is that they closed understanding from Allah and His Messenger, and they took their knowledge only by saying so-and-so said: forbidden, so-and-so said: lawful. Why is it forbidden? We do not know. We have no knowledge and no jurisprudence. Then they are confronted with reality, and matters occur that require deriving rulings for them, so they find before them only old transmissions that do not help them in correct jurisprudence. This is an example of the issue of images. The theologians or jurists of the past, naturally, did not speak about photographic images; because they...