The Shaykh’s remarks on abandoning the fanaticism for a specific school of jurisprudence, and that religion based on following a scholar without knowing his evidence is religious innovation and misguidance.

But unfortunately, this is what they did. The masses of Muslim scholars today live on this basis of division in adopting schools of jurisprudence. Therefore, we say that religion based on adopting a school of jurisprudence is religious innovation. We do not say that following a scholar without knowing his evidence is religious innovation. No, we say that following a scholar without knowing his evidence is a necessity. But religion based on following a scholar without knowing his evidence is religious innovation and misguidance. This means that if the follower is told, "Allah said so, the Messenger of Allah said so," he turns away and looks aside. Tell him, "So-and-so said..."The Shaykh : ...So-and-so said, "The Imam said," and that is it. This is a distortion of the legal truth and an imitation of the Christians, regarding whom Allah the Exalted said: The reality is a very difficult problem, because it was supposed that the influence of the Salafi school would continue until this time. Who represents the Salafi school? The first century. The first century. Do you think there were scholars like the four Imams? No, without a doubt there were scholars, but there were no followers of these scholars. So a person might ask whichever of these scholars was available to him. There was no one at that time who was a "Bakri" or "Umar" or "Uthmani" or "Ali" or a "Saudi" from Ibn Mas'ud and so on. So-and-so was a scholar, and a question came up, so he asked him. Another time, a second question came up, and a second scholar was available, so he asked him. He would not say, "No, I only ask Abu Bakr," or "I only ask Umar," and so on. The pattern of this scholarly life that these Salaf lived was supposed to be inherited by the later generations from the Salaf. But unfortunately, this method of following scholars without fanaticism for one of them was cut off from the second century approximately, when these four Imams came to have followers, and each group became fanatical for their Imam. Then it became a religion, and it became obligatory for every Muslim to adopt a school of jurisprudence, otherwise it would be lost. Do you know why it would be lost? Because the scholars they used to ask were guides of light; they were the ones who guided the ignorant to the path. This quality did not remain, and only so-and-so the Hanafi and so-and-so the Shafi'i remained. So the common people will be forced to ask these people, whereas if there were a scholarly atmosphere where Zayd asks, Bakr asks, and Amr asks, and if he doubts something, he says, "What is the evidence? What is the verse? What is the hadith?" and so on. This pattern is missing today from the Muslim world, unfortunately, except for what is rare. And in my opinion, in America, this type of students may exist, but there are no scholars of this type, because the scholars in their countries are not there. What will they bring there?