What is the ruling on a group that lives in lands of disbelief and has no scholar with them?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Regarding the answer to the question the brother mentioned, it is necessary that two conditions be met.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : The first is that they be committed to their religion and practice the Islamic faith, and the second is that there be a scholar among them.
The Shaykh : No, what I said regarding the individual, the community, the Muslim group living in the West, is that they should be united and gathered together.
The questioner : Does this apply to the students?
The Shaykh : They must have strength, they must have power, they must have a group. This first condition is that they not be lost in this disbelieving society. The second condition is that there be a scholar who leads them.
The questioner : And if there is no scholar, if there is among them someone who knows a little about the religion, and if a problem arises and he cannot provide evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, he should refer to the books, or as you generously mentioned, that you come approximately daily.
The Shaykh : Referring to books, my brother, does not solve the problem. He will refer to the fatwas of Qadi Khan, for example, or he will refer to the book al-Bazzaziyyah, or he will refer to any other book from the books of the schools of jurisprudence, or if he rises and ascends, to the book of al-Shawkani, to the book Subul al-Salam, and so on. This is not sufficient. This referring must be to a scholar of the Book and the Sunnah. A scholar means a mujtahid, meaning one who can distinguish the authentic hadith from the weak one, the correct statement from the weak one, that which agrees with what the righteous Salaf were upon, and that which contradicts it, and so on. So it is obligatory that he be a scholar in the legal sense and a mujtahid in the customary sense. Yes.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : The first is that they be committed to their religion and practice the Islamic faith, and the second is that there be a scholar among them.
The Shaykh : No, what I said regarding the individual, the community, the Muslim group living in the West, is that they should be united and gathered together.
The questioner : Does this apply to the students?
The Shaykh : They must have strength, they must have power, they must have a group. This first condition is that they not be lost in this disbelieving society. The second condition is that there be a scholar who leads them.
The questioner : And if there is no scholar, if there is among them someone who knows a little about the religion, and if a problem arises and he cannot provide evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, he should refer to the books, or as you generously mentioned, that you come approximately daily.
The Shaykh : Referring to books, my brother, does not solve the problem. He will refer to the fatwas of Qadi Khan, for example, or he will refer to the book al-Bazzaziyyah, or he will refer to any other book from the books of the schools of jurisprudence, or if he rises and ascends, to the book of al-Shawkani, to the book Subul al-Salam, and so on. This is not sufficient. This referring must be to a scholar of the Book and the Sunnah. A scholar means a mujtahid, meaning one who can distinguish the authentic hadith from the weak one, the correct statement from the weak one, that which agrees with what the righteous Salaf were upon, and that which contradicts it, and so on. So it is obligatory that he be a scholar in the legal sense and a mujtahid in the customary sense. Yes.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.