Explaining that both pretension to knowledge and blind following are blameworthy, and explaining their causes and warning against them.

The Shaykh : Take any of the imams you like; I do not mean the imams of the mosques, because most of them—as long as the earth is inhabited—most of them have no fiqh, and they are among the positions in the government departments. I do not mean these people, but I mean the great ones who are called scholars and doctors and so on. You will find that each one is on a madhhab; this one is Hanafi and this one is Shafi'i. Call them to judge by the Book and the Sunnah, and there is no response. So where is the disagreement in the branches? The disagreement is in the principles, rather in the principles of the principles.

The questioner: Glory be to Allah!

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : I say: Glory be to Allah!

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : Well, my Shaykh, does it not make more sense for a person to follow the guidance of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) rather than being partisan to any of the madhhabs?

The Shaykh : Yes, of course, but here there is also an important note.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Glory be to Allah! The Sunnah of Allah in His creation is excess and deficiency, excess and deficiency, contrary to His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): . The continued rigidity of the Muslims, both the general public and the specialists, except for a few individuals, throughout these long centuries in adhering to a madhhab has produced a reaction. This reaction was initially good, which is returning to what the righteous Salaf were upon; yes, the Book and the Sunnah without partisanship for any of the imams of the Muslims. But this return, because it did not have collective guidelines and rules, has produced a completely opposite reaction. So a man who knows nothing of fiqh reads a hadith or hears a hadith, and he becomes the one who must apply his understanding—or rather, we should say his ignorance—to this hadith. He adopts a ruling from it and proceeds, in his belief that it is easy for every person to be a mujtahid. But that is not the case. For a certain reason, we always say, as our scholars before us said:
"And all good is in following those who came before, and all evil is in the innovation of those who came after."
Do you think the first Salaf, the three centuries attested to as the best, the Companions and those who followed them and those who followed them; were they all scholars of the Book and the Sunnah? No, the fewest of the Companions were the scholars, and the majority of them were not scholars. This is the reality. Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) established a methodology for them in His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): . So the first Salaf knew the extent of their knowledge; that is, they knew themselves, and that they were not among the people of knowledge. So when they needed to know a certain issue, they asked. Because they read in the Qur'an or heard at least the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): . So our Lord in this verse divided the Muslim community into two groups: the people of knowledge and the people of ignorance. And He obligated upon each of the two groups a duty different from the duty of the other. He obligated upon the one who has no knowledge to ask the people of knowledge, and He obligated upon the people of knowledge to answer. And He (peace and blessings be upon him) confirmed that in his famous hadith: .
Now, the society—unfortunately—is not a Muslim society in many, many aspects. But the most dangerous from the Islamic perspective is that it is not Islamic either; that is, from the perspective of escaping the blind following that has settled in the hearts of hundreds of Muslims. In my personal opinion, we have fallen into an opposite problem: that every person issues a fatwa for himself, and perhaps for others, without knowledge. He may not even be able to recite a verse as it is recited or written in the Noble Qur'an, let alone a Prophetic hadith. Yet he neglects the application of this verse: . Among the causes of this is the corruption of people and the arrogance in the hearts of people and self-admiration. So the student of knowledge, if he is a student of knowledge, merely by feeling that he has a little knowledge, his inner state becomes, as they say in Syria: "O earth, be firm, no one is above me!" And he barely understands anything of knowledge except a very little. So these are in one place, and the rigid ones who stick to the blind following of the madhhab, or the madhhabs, are in another place. And the truth is in the middle between that; which is the actual application of the previous verse: . And they say this in the hadiths that are mentioned, like a hadith with no basis, but it is wisdom: "Whoever knows himself, he has known his Lord." So most people today do not know themselves, because self-admiration and arrogance have taken hold of them. Allah is Great. The hadith that says: , what are they? , ; this is a disease among the diseases that we are afflicted with.

The questioner : This is a hadith, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : Is this a hadith?

The Shaykh: Correct.

The questioner : .

The Shaykh : This is a valid hadith, but leave your own self-admiration. Three destructive things.
Can we catch up with the prayer?

The questioner : By Allah, I do not think we will continue the session, later...

The Shaykh : Yes, I think the questions are finished. Let us stand up and pray. What did we benefit from you?! We ate and were full and finished!