What is your opinion of the one who says, "My madhhab is this, but with evidence," and claims that following a specific madhhab is obligatory, and asserts that the previous imams were on specific madhhabs?

The questioner : What is your opinion of the one who says, "My madhhab is this, but with evidence," and insists on adopting a specific madhhab, and argues that the majority, if not all, of the previous imams were on this method?

The Shaykh : ... It appears that the questioner intended one thing, but his wording overtook him, so he conveyed the opposite of what he intended. When he says "the previous imams," the term "imams" immediately brings to mind the mujtahid imams. Did they call their followers to follow them in taqlid, forbid them from following the Book and the Sunnah, and compel them to follow them exactly, step by step? May they be far from that. If he means by "imams" here the opposite of what the term implies, namely the scholars who follow those mujtahid imams in taqlid, then we say that these people he calls imams are of no account, as long as they are followers in taqlid. The follower in taqlid, by the admission of the followers themselves, has an obligation to follow the statements of the mujtahids. In fact, they explicitly state a phrase with precision: "The evidence of the mujtahid is the Book and the Sunnah, and the evidence of the follower in taqlid is the statement of the Imam, not the statement of Allah and the statement of the Messenger of Allah. The statement of Allah and the statement of the Messenger of Allah is the evidence of the mujtahid Imam, whereas the evidence of the follower in taqlid is 'So-and-so the Imam said.'" This is what the follower in taqlid should say.
And we say, we judge you by your own mouth, as long as the madhhab of taqlid obligates you to say what the Imam said. We say that all the Imams said, "Do not follow us in our religion. Do not follow me, or Malik, or Sufyan, or anyone else, but only take from where we took." The texts on this are numerous and very numerous. I had mentioned some of them in the introduction to *The Description of the Prophet's Prayer* (peace and blessings be upon him). Therefore, the questioner's statement that the Imams ordered this is an error; it is an error, if not a fabrication against them. As for his statement, "I follow a madhhab, but if evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it," we say to him: Has no evidence become apparent to you until today that it is not permissible for you to take an Imam after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)? No one was given infallibility with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Has no evidence become apparent to you until today that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah? Just as there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, so there is no one to be followed in truth except the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).
Has the truth not become clear to you yet? I think that in that case, the man is deceiving himself or concealing things from his companions by saying, "I am a follower of one of the madhhabs, but if evidence becomes apparent to me, I follow it." Glory be to Allah! If your madhhab, for example, is the Hanafi madhhab, and the Hanafis say that the emergence of a line like the letter alif from blood in a part of your body invalidates and breaks your wudu, and if evidence becomes apparent to you that this wudu remains valid, do you follow it and contradict the madhhab? Why do you not contradict the madhhab that tells you—this is not on the tongue of the Imams, but on the tongue of the followers of the Imams—such as, for example, the statement of al-Bujayri: "It is obligatory to follow a scholar from them". Where did this follower in taqlid get this ruling from, when none of the followers in taqlid or the mujtahid Imams said it? They said it while claiming taqlid; they exercised ijtihad and then said what none of the mujtahids ever said at all.
So we advise this questioner, or the one the questioner is describing, that it is obligatory for him to take the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) as his madhhab always and forever. But we do not say to him, as some people think and unjustly and falsely accuse us of, that we say it is obligatory for the general Muslim public to exercise ijtihad and understand the Book and the Sunnah directly, and to know the authentic and weak hadith, the general and specific, the absolute and restricted, and so on. We do not say this. Rather, we say, as we have said on many occasions, that Allah the Exalted and Glorious made the Muslim community, in terms of knowledge, into two groups: a group of people of knowledge and a group who are not people of knowledge. He made it obligatory for each of the two groups to perform an obligation that each must fulfill. It is obligatory for the people of knowledge, when asked, to answer. It is obligatory for the others to ask. So you, O follower in taqlid who have imposed on yourself the following of an Imam or one of the madhhabs, an imposition that Allah did not make, nor His Messenger, nor any Imam of the Muslims, it is obligatory for you to remove from your mind this thing you have imposed on yourself, and to impose on yourself anew the following of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). But I know that you will say, "I am unlettered, I do not read, I am ignorant." The answer comes to you from the core of the Noble Qur'an in a language that even the common Arab understands, and perhaps the non-Arabs also share with the Arabs in understanding that verse: . So your obligation is to ask the scholar to guide you to what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was upon, not to guide you to what Abu Hanifa said if your madhhab is the Hanafi, or what Malik said if your madhhab is the Maliki, and so on.
So we have been commanded to follow the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) made that a protection for people so that if they hold fast to it, they will not go astray nor deviate to the right or the left. He (may the prayer and peace of Allah be upon him) said: So we ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, to keep us alive upon the Book and the Sunnah, and to cause us to die upon that. And the conclusion of our supplication is: All praise is to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And we hope that our Lord, the Exalted and Glorious, will gather us in another meeting, and may it be near. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.