Is the statement of Ibn Mas'ud

The Shaykh: Yes, I see you are coughing.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh: I say, may you be well, I see you are coughing.

The questioner: I have a light cold.

The Shaykh : Yes, praise be to Allah.

The questioner: We have a question, O our Shaykh, let us start right away, meaning.

The Shaykh : Straight ahead.

The questioner: In Sunan al-Nasa'i, from Ibn Mas'ud, he said: "A time came to us when we did not judge, and we were not there, and indeed Allah - Mighty and Majestic - decreed that we should reach what you see."

The Shaykh: Decreed that we should reach.

The questioner: What you see, "so if a case of judgment is presented to him after today, let him judge by what is in the Book of Allah, and if a matter comes that is not in the Book of Allah, let him judge by what his Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him - judged by, and if a matter comes that is not in the Book of Allah and his Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him - did not judge by it, let him judge by what the righteous judged by." This apparently contradicts what you mentioned regarding the weak hadith... that it is necessary to present the Book and the Sunnah together.

The Shaykh: It is necessary to present what?

The questioner: It is necessary to look at the Book and the Sunnah together.

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.

The questioner: So what do you say about this?

The Shaykh: And is it conceivable otherwise, when the Messenger says: , as for this report of Ibn Mas'ud, it is like what came in the letter of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab to Abu Musa, which resembles this classification, but it is not permissible at all to understand from this report of Ibn Mas'ud or that report of 'Umar that they mean looking at the Book of Allah only without the Sunnah, rather one should look at the Book and the Sunnah together, and if it is not found in the Book, as is the case in many matters, then at that time one returns to the Sunnah alone, and the Sunnah is sufficient in this case, then comes the third stage, returning to what the Companions were upon, and in my belief, such a detail that we are mentioning now and have mentioned in other places is something that no Muslim scholar can be free from, otherwise he would depart from acting not only by the Sunnah but also by the Qur'an, meaning that Allah - Mighty and Majestic - addressed His Prophet - peace be upon him - with His saying: , so if he looks at the Qur'an that was revealed to his Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him - and then does not combine with it the looking at the explanation, which is the Sunnah of the Messenger - peace be upon him -, that means he is bringing a new religion, and the examples of that are many and very many, known to everyone who has practically concerned himself with studying the principles of jurisprudence and the scientific rules therein that the scholars established to regulate the understanding of the texts of the Book, let alone the Sunnah, there, as we know, are the general and the specific, the absolute and the restricted, the ambiguous and the detailed, and the like of what is mentioned in detail in the books of the principles of jurisprudence, so if a questioner asked one of those Salaf from whom such a report came, about the ruling on the carrion of fish? If he looks in the Book of Allah, he finds His saying - the Exalted -: , so he would issue a ruling forbidding the carrion of fish, but it is necessary that he look, along with his looking at the Book, at the Sunnah - also - one of whose functions is to explain what was made absolute in the Qur'an or came as general in it, and the like of that, so at that time we are certain that his answer, when he looks at the Book and the Sunnah together, as we explicitly stated there and as is the reality of the scholars of the Muslims... his ruling is complete, and they will say: every carrion is forbidden except the carrion of fish and locusts, implementing the text of the Qur'an and the Sunnah which came in it: ; so I cannot, and I do not think anyone else can, understand from the report of Ibn Mas'ud and the report of 'Umar that it means looking at the Qur'an only, rather one looks at the Qur'an and the Sunnah together, and if he does not find anything in the Qur'an, then at that time he relies on the Sunnah only, and the last thing that can be said is that... the intended meaning of this report and that one is looking at the Qur'an only alone without the Sunnah, this is not said by a Muslim for what we mentioned earlier of the many strikes and responses of the texts that came in the Sunnah and which came as an explanation of the Qur'an, this is what I have in the research.

The questioner: His saying "the Book of Allah" includes the Sunnah implicitly, or otherwise... he explicitly mentioned it.

The Shaykh: Yes.