What is the ruling on independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) in religion?

The Shaykh : I will state our view on ijtihad and the subsequent disagreement among Muslims regarding the day of fasting. Ijtihad, like jihad, will continue until the Day of Resurrection. What is the meaning of ijtihad? It means exerting effort to understand the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. If we say, as many later scholars have said, that the door of ijtihad was closed in the fourth century and that there is no ijtihad after the fourth century, that means we have blocked a very great path of good for the Islamic world, for the students of knowledge in it, and indeed for its scholars. That path is 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 in the hadith of Abu Juhayfa, he asked Ali, saying to him: "Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) give you, O people of the House, something that He did not give to the people?" This refers to knowledge, as is common among many of the common people and some of the specialists, who believe 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, O 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..." Some of the hadiths he received from the Messenger (peace be upon him) include the explanation that Madinah is a sanctuary like Makkah, and specifically in it . The point of this authentic hadith is that Ali says, "We, the people of the House... were not given knowledge that the people were not given, except for one whom Allah (Mighty and Majestic) grants understanding, which Allah gives to this servant in His Book." If we say that the door of ijtihad 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 it opposes many hadiths, some of which include his saying (may the prayer and peace of Allah be upon him) . What does "scholar" mean? It means a jurist. And what does "jurist" mean? It means one who understands, meaning through 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 scholars, let alone those below them, no longer study the Qur'an with the aim of understanding, nor do they study the Sunnah with the aim of understanding. In fact, many of them say, "We read the Book and the Sunnah for blessing, not for understanding," because they... cannot understand the Book and the Sunnah. Thus, they have closed a great door of knowledge upon themselves. So the saying of the Messenger (may the prayer and peace of Allah be upon him) in the previous hadith has come true for them and their followers: "They were misguided in themselves and misled the others who asked them," meaning without understanding from the Book and the Sunnah. It is no wonder that we hear today many fatwas that contradict the clear text of the Book and the Sunnah. Why? The study of the Book and the Sunnah has ceased to be either following those before us blindly, step by step, without presenting this following to the Book and the Sunnah so that we may be, as stated in the previous verse, upon clear proof, or it has become a leap from following to ijtihad without any restriction or condition... from the Book and the Sunnah. This is how they see it. For example, we live today 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 jurists permit what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade in dozens of hadiths, and the scholars agreed on its prohibition, such as images, whether in the form of drawing, photography, or keeping them. This affliction has spread in the homes of Muslims; there is hardly a Muslim home without many images, some of which may be indecent. I have even 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 a calendar or a planner, which contains, for example, prayer times, especially the imsakiyyah for Ramadan. You find there an image that may have a type of sanctity in the hearts of Muslims, such as the Ka'bah. But the Ka'bah is photographed, and the circumambulators around it are photographed. Images have been brought even into the houses of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). How is this? Their philosophy is that these are photographic images, not hand-drawn images. 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 a lack of understanding in religion. The reason is that they closed the door of understanding from Allah and His Messenger, so they took their knowledge only from saying, "So-and-so said it is forbidden," or "So-and-so said it is permissible." Why is it forbidden? We do not know. We have no knowledge and no fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Then they are confronted with reality, and matters arise that require deriving rulings, but they find before them only old narrations that do not help them in correct fiqh. This is an example of the issue of images; the speakers or previous jurists, naturally, did not speak about photographic images because they...