Discussion of the hadith: (Until there remained no scholar, the people took ignorant leaders, and they were asked, so they issued rulings without knowledge, and they went astray and led others astray) and the reality of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in

The Shaykh : It may be settled in the minds of some people today that there are many jurists, and very many indeed. This is because the legal term fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) has been affected, just as many texts from the Book and the Sunnah have been affected, by a deviation from their correct meaning. Fiqh is understanding from Allah and His Messenger, as it came in Sahih al-Bukhari in a hadith of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him), where Abu Juhayfah al-Sa'idi asked 'Ali, saying: "Did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) give you, O people of the House, anything specifically that the people do not have?" He said: "No, except what is in ... this sheath of my sword, or an understanding that Allah grants to His servant in His Book." This understanding of the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and, consequently, of the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), which explains the Qur'an by the text of the Qur'an This understanding of the Book and the Sunnah is fiqh, and it is what the Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) intended in the authentic, famous hadith agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim: So this fiqh in the religion has been affected by deviation and a lack of understanding of it, to the point that it has become customary to define fiqh as merely narrating the statements of scholars without the narrator knowing what evidence these statements were taken from the Book and the Sunnah. In this case, there is no difference between this person who is called a jurist but has no fiqh except "so-and-so said this and so-and-so said that." If he is asked, "What is the evidence for such-and-such a statement?" he does not know what the evidence is for such-and-such a statement; he does not know, he does not clarify an answer, "What is the evidence for such-and-such a statement?" Likewise, he does not know! And so on. So this fiqh, which is intended to mean understanding from Allah and His Messenger, is what 'Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) meant. Otherwise, the jurists in the later sense, which is transmitting the statements of the earlier people of knowledge without understanding, this is not of fiqh at all. And among the effects of the lack of this fiqh and our belief in these jurists is that a person may be declared a disbeliever, and the legal realities may be reversed, as you heard just now, so that the Sunnah becomes a religious innovation and the religious innovation becomes the Sunnah, due to the loss of this distinguishing fiqh. Ibn Mas'ud, many of you know that he was at war with religious innovation and innovators, and he would deny the smallest thing he saw that had occurred among some Muslims, and he would hasten to deny it, no matter how insignificant it was in the eyes of others due to their ignorance. Ibn 'Umar, as if he is explaining the famous hadith , he says: "Every religious innovation is misguidance, even if people see it as good." These people who see the religious innovation as good do so only because of their ignorance of the correct fiqh from the Book and the Sunnah.