Can one compare any of the contemporary scholars with some of the recognized imams of the schools of jurisprudence?

The questioner : This is conceivable; it may be conceivable regarding scholars if they were, for example, still living. But if one were to compare, for example, one of the contemporary scholars with, for example, some of the imams of the schools, this might be, for example, governed by looking at the levels of the people of knowledge. It may also involve a lack of balance, in that, for example, a man is a person who wants to return to Imam al-Shafi'i or Imam Ahmad, or such people.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : With a contemporary scholar, how would this example be applied to this case?

The Shaykh : This can be applied. First: If the four imams differed on the issue, or if they agreed, the issue differs entirely. If the four imams differed, it is not from the Shari'ah, nor from reason, to say that the statement of Imam al-Shafi'i is better than that of this contemporary imam. One might say about him, "Why is he an imam?" Because if he is truly a scholar, he has looked into the statement of Imam al-Shafi'i and the other statements, and he has weighed them, whether from the hadith perspective—authentic, weak, good, and so on—or from the fiqh perspective—general and specific, absolute and restricted, abrogating and abrogated, and so on. He weighed these statements and took the statement closest to validity and correctness.

The questioner : In this case, he is a follower.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : In this case, he is a follower.

The Shaykh : Who is the one who does this?

The questioner : The one who does this weighs the statements and the evidence.

The Shaykh : No, I am speaking about the scholar whom the follower follows.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : I am speaking about the scholar whom the follower follows. As for if the issue is agreed upon by the four scholars, and there is another statement by scholars, for example, who are not well-known among the majority of Muslims, such as Imam al-Awza'i, who was the imam of the people of Sham in his time, and Sufyan al-Thawri, who was in the time of, meaning, Abu Hanifah, and others who came after him shortly, and the imams, and praise be to Allah, Abdullah ibn Mubarak, and many, many others, but it was not decreed for them to have followers and supporters as was decreed for the four imams. Here too, it becomes apparent: if the questioner knows the value of this scholar in the present age, has his knowledge reached the point where he can also grasp the statements of the other imams and see, for example, whether they contradicted the four imams or agreed with them? And the issue closest to you, for example, or the issue closest to the four imams: they agreed that divorce by the phrase "three" is three. If a man says to his wife, "I have divorced you three times," or "You are divorced three times," she is not lawful to him thereafter until she marries another husband. There are there old scholars like Ibn Abbas and others, and some later scholars who looked into the four schools and their statement, which agrees with the statement of Umar in his time, adopted his fatwa, such as Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Hazm, Ibn al-Qayyim, and the like. So if this contemporary scholar also has, and the questioner has, from... and the knowledge and insight that he looked into the statements of the four imams, and those before and after them, and so on, and chose a statement that contradicts the statement of the four imams and mentioned the evidence for it, then what I said earlier does not apply regarding the fact that we testify that each of the imams is, without doubt, more knowledgeable than any imam in the last times. But we say something, and this is a fact that cannot be denied: they were, without doubt, more knowledgeable and more pious than those who came after them. But those who came after them, because they gathered their sciences, became more knowledgeable than each one of them individually, but not by their own merit, but by the merit of them. This helps this scholar in the present age so that he does not take the statement of Imam al-Shafi'i or any of the other four imams, even if they agreed, if there is a predecessor before these four imams, as we gave the example of divorce, and he took it, and the evidence is with him in "Sahih Muslim" and the like. Meaning, the matter is not so easy that a person can give a decisive answer regarding every individual, because this differs from person to person. But the governing measure is, as I mentioned earlier, and it is absolutely necessary. But a person who does not know Shaykh So-and-So in the present age, but knows Shaykh al-Shafi'i or Imam Abu Hanifah, or so on, we say to him: follow the imam that you know. Even I said, and my brothers who attend our gatherings, I say, contrary to what is rumored about the Salafis, I believe that everyone who wants to seek knowledge in the Islamic lands must study fiqh according to one of the four schools, unless he is in a community that resembles the first community, the Salafi community, meaning that that community does not issue fatwas except by the Book and the Sunnah. This is what we say to him: you must read the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, or Hanbali school. But this does not exist in this age, even in the countries closest to the Salafi call, the majority of which are school-based. So I say: the one who wants to gain fiqh knowledge, if he does not have that Salafi environment, must gain fiqh knowledge according to a school, but with the condition that if the truth becomes clear to him in another school, he follows it, and does not say, "My school is Shafi'i."