Is it permissible to follow a specific school of jurisprudence? If it is not permissible, we request that you mention the evidence for the prohibition, knowing that the one who follows a school reads the evidence for the ruling.

The Shaykh : Is it permissible to follow a specific school of jurisprudence? If it is not permissible, we request that you mention the evidence that prohibits this, knowing that the one who follows the school reads the evidence for the ruling, because we will certainly make more mistakes than they do, since our knowledge is less than theirs, and because, according to your statement, every person makes mistakes, and the mistake of the scholar of the school is less than our mistake?
That is correct, but this questioner assumes that we are calling for abandoning the madhhab (school of jurisprudence) first, or that we pronounce it with the three divorces; the questioner imagines this, but that is not what we say, and I will elaborate on this. Second, he imagines that we will come up with an opinion from our own minds that no scholar among the scholars of the Muslims has ever stated. Where did this illusion come from? From his statement that if they err, we err even more. This is a correct statement, but we do not come up with an opinion from our own minds to contradict... and at that point it is said, if they err, we are more in error and more clearly in error. But we say, and... we call people to what we always and forever repeat, and we mentioned it just now when the questioner there asked that the Muslims agreed on such and such. We said, did they all agree? He said no. So we told him, then we return to the saying of Allah the Exalted: This is our obligation, and this is our call: that when the scholars of the Muslims differ, we do not accept this difference and do not make it a religion, but rather we try to get rid of it as much as possible. In a disagreement of one hundred issues, we try to get rid of one issue. And how is this release possible? It is by making the previous verse the judge: The questioner will say, "Well, do you permit yourself to err?" I will say, yes, I permit myself to err, all the more so, just as he said and as all rational people say. But I am not alone in the field. I say, take the madhhab of Abu Hanifah if the evidence is stronger and more powerful for you, or take the madhhab of al-Shafi'i. In that case, the difference will be between you and others, or between you when you follow your own madhhab and you yourself when you follow another madhhab, because you have come to know that its evidence is stronger than the evidence of your imam. You are like so-and-so, like a man, for example, who follows the Hanafi madhhab. The Hanafi madhhab does not raise the hands in ruku' (bowing) and sujud (prostration), meaning at the time of ruku' and when rising from ruku'. Then you find, for example, twenty hadiths that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used to raise his hands at ruku'. And you find in the madhhab of Abu Hanifah the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud who said: "Shall I lead you in the prayer of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)? So he raised his hands and then did not do it again." So you thought between these two madhhabs, and the Shafi'i madhhab became more preponderant for you, which is not your original madhhab, because you found twenty hadiths in it, whereas in your original madhhab you found only one hadith. This single hadith is a negative, non-affirmative narration; it does not state that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his hands at ruku', whereas the twenty hadiths are affirmative narrations, all of whose narrators state that the Messenger used to raise his hands. So you took this madhhab. Let us assume, and indeed we affirm it is possible, that you erred. But there is a difference between your previous state when you did not raise your hands and your new subsequent state when you began to raise them. Previously, you did not know anything except the Hanafi madhhab and that raising the hands is disliked. When you opened up to knowing the evidence and to getting rid of the disagreement, as you requested from the verse, you sought the evidence of the Hanafis and found the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud mentioned. You sought the evidence of the Shafi'is and found twenty hadiths, so you took the raising of the hands for the sake of twenty hadiths. Do you not see that you are now, you and the same person, more pleasing to Allah and His Messenger than you were before you studied the issue and before you looked into the twenty hadiths? Without a doubt, there is a possibility that you erred in taking the opinion of al-Shafi'i in this issue, but you are on a straighter path and more upright in speech when you took the twenty hadiths, which is the madhhab of al-Shafi'i, than when you were taking the madhhab of Abu Hanifah, which has the extra hadith of Ibn Mas'ud. The possibility that one who wants to take the most correct of the madhhabs might err—we do not deny this. But as I say on many such occasions, the difference between the muqallid (one who follows a scholar without knowing his evidence) and the muttabi' (one who follows the evidence) is as follows: we have a muqallid and we have a muttabi'. The muqallid is one who does not know the evidence of the madhhab and does not compare these evidences with the evidences of the other madhhabs. As for the muttabi', he follows the hadith wherever it is and in whichever madhhab it is among the madhhabs of the imams of Islam. The difference between the muqallid and the muttabi' is as follows in a mathematical operation: muqallid plus zero equals zero; muttabi' plus hadith equals one or equals two. Here, the muttabi' has a hadith added, whereas the muqallid has nothing added except zero, because he knows nothing. Therefore, the scholars said that taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) is from al-qaladah (the necklace), which is the collar, so it is as if the muqallid throws his religion like a necklace around the neck of the one followed, meaning, as the common people say: "... tie your shoe and put your foot in cold water" It no longer matters to him this opinion; he says, "Allah is its source," or "The Messenger of Allah is its source," or "Ijma' (scholarly consensus) is its source," or is it opinion and ijtihad (independent legal reasoning)? It does not matter to him; he followed his religion. As for the muttabi', This muttabi' is not satisfied with merely "so-and-so said such and such," just as you see, the questioner asks a question and receives a quick answer according to the circumstance, and the answer is clear and convincing by its nature, because we have learned to proceed with insight. A second question is raised: "What is the evidence?" As happened just now regarding wiping over the socks. This is the sound path: that a person does not close his eyes and walk, but opens his eyes and walks. We do not want from the Muslims more than that they be on insight regarding their religion. And the truth is that in this message we referred to just now, I concluded it with a word, and it is perhaps appropriate now to read it to you, because it is related to the topic: "... the cultured Muslim youth today. And in conclusion, O my brothers, I conclude this word of mine by charging you all to be imams, mujtahids (scholars qualified to derive rulings), and faqih (jurists) who verify. And although this pleases me as it pleases you, it is usually not possible due to the necessity of differing specializations and the cooperation of specialists with one another. Rather, I intended from it two things. The first is that you be aware of a matter hidden from many of the cultured believing youth today, let alone others, which is that while they have learned, through the efforts and writings of some Islamic writers like Sayyid Qutb (may Allah have mercy on him) and the scholar al-Mawdudi (may Allah preserve him) and others, that the right of legislation belongs to Allah the Exalted alone, and no human or body shares in it with Him—which they expressed as the sovereignty of Allah the Exalted, and this is explicit in those preceding texts in the message from the Book and the Sunnah—I say, in this same time, many of these youths have not yet realized that the participation that contradicts the principle of the sovereignty of Allah the Exalted makes no difference whether the human followed instead of Allah is a Muslim who erred in a ruling of Allah, or a disbeliever who set himself up as a legislator with Allah, and whether he is knowledgeable or ignorant. All of this contradicts the aforementioned principle which the youth have believed in, and praise be to Allah the Exalted. This is what I wanted you to be aware of and I remind you of it, for the reminder benefits the believers. I have heard many of them preach with all enthusiasm and praiseworthy Islamic zeal to affirm that sovereignty belongs to Allah alone, and they strike at the governing disbelieving systems, and this is a beautiful thing, even though we cannot change it now. While there is in the hearts of many of us what contradicts the aforementioned principle and is easy to change, we do not alert the Muslims to it or remind them of it, which is religion by taqlid and casting aside the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. So this same enthusiastic preacher, if you alerted him to a contradiction of his that occurred with a verse or a hadith, he would immediately resort to arguing with the madhhab, without realizing, unfortunately, that by his action he negates that great principle to which he called people... -Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone. Do we reject the disbelieving laws? No, it is more precise than that: we reject the statement of the Muslim because it contradicts the Book and the Sunnah. -He immediately resorts to arguing with the madhhab, without realizing, unfortunately, that by his knowledge he negates that great principle to which he called people. And Allah the Exalted says:

The only statement of the [true] believers when they are called to Allah and His Messenger to judge between them is that they say, "We hear and we obey." And those are the successful.

إنما كان قول المؤمنين إذا دعوا إلى الله ورسوله ليحكم بينهم أن يقولوا سمعنا وأطعنا وأولئك هم المفلحون

[An-Nur 24:51]

So it was incumbent upon him to hasten to submission to what he heard of the reminder and the evidence, because that is knowledge, and not to resort to taqlid, because that is ignorance. -The intended meaning of this speech is its beginnings, but the crux is my saying: -And the other thing is that you verify in yourselves a rank that is obligatory, possible, and easy for every Muslim, even if to a small degree, which is below the rank of ijtihad and verification that only the select of men can undertake, and that is the rank of following the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and singling him out for that. Each of you according to his capacity. What I ask, and we Salafis ask all Muslims, is to single out the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in following, just as they singled out Allah in tawhid (the oneness of Allah). Singling out the Messenger in following is a goal without which the faith of the Muslim is not completed, and it is part of the meaning of the statement "There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." But achieving the singling out of the Messenger in following, as I said, is for each of you according to his capacity. The scholar has a wider circle in this verification than the student of knowledge, and the non-student is far below that, each according to his capacity. Just as you single out Allah the Exalted in your worship, so you single out the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in your following. So your worshipped One is one, and your followed One is one, and thereby you realize in practice the testimony that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. So, O noble brothers, accustom yourselves to believe in every hadith that is established for you from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), whether it is in 'aqidah (creed) or rulings, and whether your imam, whom you grew up in his madhhab by virtue of your environment, said it or any other of the imams of the Muslims. And do not adopt a rule from those rules that were established from the opinions of some men and their ijtihad, while they are not mujtahids, which would prevent you from following. And do not follow any human, however high and exalted, preferring his statement over the statement of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) after you have reached him. This is what we want from you." Not... a greater mujtahid. This has imams, it has men. And also... a mujtahid did not state a rule that ijtihad is divisible. Rather, a knowledgeable man who has reached you a hadith from the Messenger, do not say, "I do not take it because it contradicts my madhhab." What is your madhhab? And this speech, unfortunately, is said by scholars, not by the common people whom we warn not to do ijtihad and be scholars who understand the Book and the Sunnah, but their minds have been shrouded by religion by taqlid, which prevented them from singling out the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in following. "And know that by this only, and not by anything else, you realize in knowledge and practice the principle that says 'There is no god but Allah' is a way of life, and the principle that says 'Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone' (Blessed and Exalted is He). And without that, it is impossible for us to produce the unique Quranic generation which alone is able to establish the Muslim society and its characteristics, and thereby the desired Muslim state, in accordance with the true wisdom said by one of the great Islamic callers (may Allah have mercy on him): 'Establish the state of Islam in your hearts, and it will be established for you on your land.' And perhaps that will be near.

O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart and that to Him you will be gathered.

يا أيها الذين آمنوا استجيبوا لله ورسوله إذا دعاكم لما يحييكم واعلموا أن الله يحول بين المرء وقلبه وأنه إليه تحشرون

[Al-Anfal 8:24]

" ... to the end of the verse. Is this verse directed to the scholars of the Muslims or to their ignorant ones? I hope the brother who brought us the question will take charge of the answer. If it is not too long, be patient, I will expand with you. If you feel incapable of answering, you may delegate in the manner of lawyers, one answers for you. Do you want one to answer for you? If you answer.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : ...answer my question! Because if we have fifty people here, or a hundred people... if we have a hundred people here and each one asks his question according to his own way, and my duty is to answer each one according to his intellect, understanding, and culture, look, if the number is fifty, I would be fifty-one; if the number is a hundred, it would be one hundred and one. The one who completes the number, fifty-one or one hundred and one, is not permitted to ask a question! So I hope that I will get the answer. I asked you: Allah the Exalted said: Is this address directed to the scholars of the Muslims or to the ignorant among them?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Why us? How do you know that we are not... be patient, my brother.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Do you agree?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : That is, the answer that I am presenting to you... be patient, be patient...