A discussion that took place between Al-Albani and the Mufti of Syria

The Shaykh : I am now recalling a discussion that took place between me and one of the madhhab followers in a session that perhaps gathered twice the size of this blessed gathering, with the Mufti of Muzah there in Syria. He remained a madhhab follower and refused to engage with us in returning to the evidence of the Book and the Sunnah to solve the problems of the Ummah, which are always in a state of continuous renewal. So, in my conversation with him, I said: "O Shaykh, where do we take the answer for some matters that occur and continue to occur, which had not occurred before, except through independent legal reasoning (ijtihad)?" He said: "Like what?" I said to him: "For example, what do you say about praying on an airplane? Is it permissible or not?" He said with complete confidence: "Yes." I said to him: "What is the evidence?" And he was the Mufti, the Mufti of the country I was discussing with. He said: "By analogy (qiyas) to prayer on a ship." I said: "What is the common factor between the case being analogized and the case it is analogized to?" He said: "Prayer on a ship is connected to the earth by water, and prayer on an airplane is also connected to the earth by air." I said: "Good, but did you not realize that you have just exercised independent legal reasoning (ijtihad)?" He said: "How?" I said: "Analogy (qiyas) is the last of the four proofs. We said earlier: the Qur'an, the Sunnah, scholarly consensus (ijma'), and analogy (qiyas). So, it is fitting that one who analogizes has exercised independent legal reasoning (ijtihad). You deny independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), yet you fall into what you deny. You have erred in your independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), or you have hit the mark in your independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) and erred." He said: "How?" I said: "I do not see that you erred regarding the evidence you mentioned, such as prayer on a ship, and this is an authentic hadith. But you contradicted your madhhab." He said: "How?" I said: "It is mentioned in al-Rafi'i's commentary on al-Wajiz: 'If a man prayed on a swing that is not suspended from the ceiling and not supported from the ground, his prayer is invalid.' And this is the airplane, specifically the one called today a helicopter, which stands like this: it is not suspended from the ceiling and not supported from the ground. So, according to your madhhab and your rigidity in adhering to the madhhab, you must say that prayer on an airplane is invalid." He said: "I have not come across this text." I said to him: "One who knows is a proof over one who does not know, and I have indicated the source to you. So, the point, may Allah bless you, is that in what we need regarding acts of worship, we have no need for analogy (qiyas) at all. But as Imam al-Shafi'i said, analogy (qiyas) is a dire necessity (darurah), so we resort to analogy (qiyas) to remove this dire necessity (darurah). Otherwise, we are in no need of it. Bring us something else. What do you have? Or shall we proceed?"