Explaining the ruling on claiming affiliation with one of the four schools of jurisprudence.

The Shaykh : And far less than this, yet still significant, is what the majority of Muslims today have been afflicted with, to the point that it has become a religion: following one of the four schools of jurisprudence. How can it be imagined that we would declare these Muslims disbelievers because they follow one of the four schools of jurisprudence? This is the furthest thing from our reality. And we do not say this to be compromising. If we wanted to compromise with anyone, you would not have heard this speech we have given, which is that most people do not know. The oneness of Allah is not known by most Muslims today. But we say what we profess to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). So, following a scholar without knowing his evidence, which we believe is not a religion, is not strange. We say that at the same time we believe that calling upon other than Allah is associating partners with Allah, and yet we do not declare that caller a disbeliever because he is ignorant. It is even more fitting that we say, when we believe that following a scholar without knowing his evidence is not a religion and the masses of people have adopted it as a religion, that we do not declare these people disbelievers. Because, first, this is not disbelief in itself, except in narrow limits to which I will refer shortly, if Allah wills. So how can we declare a disbeliever one who has fallen into error, or even into a sin? This is a fabrication against us, and it is not the first lie fabricated against us. Rather, as I told you, it is a reminder, and the reminder benefits the believers.
We, our brothers, say regarding following a scholar without knowing his evidence: The original obligatory duty for every Muslim is to profess the Book and the Sunnah, and to follow what is established in the Book and the Sunnah. This is the obligatory duty for every Muslim, without distinction between a scholar and a student, or an uneducated person. As a creed, there is absolutely no difference in this. The difference comes in the path, in the method. That is, how does the scholar know the ruling of Allah? And how does the uneducated person know the ruling of Allah? They differ greatly. The scholar knows the ruling of Allah through his study of the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah. The uneducated person who cannot read or write, how does he know the ruling of Allah? If he opens the mushaf, he cannot read it, and likewise he cannot read the hadith?
The answer is in the Noble Qur'an itself: . Ask the people of knowledge about what? About so-and-so's opinion, so-and-so's school of jurisprudence, so-and-so's independent legal reasoning, and so-and-so's derivation of rulings, or about what Allah said and what the Messenger of Allah said? There is no doubt that asking about the ruling of Allah, which He revealed in His Book and which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified in his hadith. So the difference between the scholar and the ignorant uneducated person is not in the specific obligation of following the Book and the Sunnah for each of them, but the difference is in the method of reaching the knowledge of what must be followed from the Book and the Sunnah. The scholar knows that directly, while the layperson and the ignorant person cannot know that except through the scholar.
Here the error begins. The intermediary for the uneducated and ignorant person to know the ruling of Allah and the ruling of His Messenger is the scholar. So the scholar is a means, not a goal. The goal is following the Book and the Sunnah. If the matter reaches the point of inverting this reality, that is clear misguidance. What is this inversion? It is making the means the goal. It is not asking about the ruling of Allah or the ruling of the Messenger of Allah, but asking the scholar: "What is your opinion?" He says to him: "My opinion is such and such." So he submits to him and follows him. And it was supposed that, as a Muslim, to whom did he submit? "I submitted to Allah, Lord of the worlds." It was supposed that he should submit his heart, his mind, his thinking, his life, and his death, as in the Noble Qur'an: . He was required to submit all of this. And here we are, inverting the facts and making the means the goal. We have made the scholar the goal, as if he were the Messenger himself (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him), whom it is not permissible to oppose, and whoever deliberately opposes him with his heart has committed disbelief and exited the religion, like a hair coming out of dough.
Is this the status of the scholars, that we place them in the position of the infallible Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family)? No. Therefore, the Qur'anic text distinguished in many verses, and the most subtle of them, between the Messenger who must be followed because he is protected by Allah's protection for him, and those who take from him. It distinguished with the most eloquent expression, and He said (the Exalted): . The verb did not appear in the third instance. It did not say: "Obey Allah, obey the Messenger, and obey those in authority." Rather, it said: . And this, as Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said, is to draw attention to the fact that obeying those in authority, who are the scholars and the rulers, is not all rulers, but only those who rule by what Allah has revealed. They are obeyed following their obedience to Allah and the Messenger. As for the Messenger, he is obeyed because he is a Messenger, because he conveys from Allah, and falsehood does not come to him from before him or from behind him. So we have become not distinguishing between the Messenger and the one who transmits from the Messenger and understands from the Messenger; and they are those in authority, and they are the rulers.