If two scholars present their evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, how can I distinguish between the opinions?

The questioner : Both of them brought evidence from the Book and from the Sunnah, each bringing his own proof; so how can I distinguish?

The Shaykh : No, it is not possible for you, you cannot do it. But in that case, you perform a personal effort of judgment (ijtihad) that suits your own situation, for you know your own situation best. You may be a complete layperson, you may be a secondary school student, you may be a candidate for the degree they call, for example, a master's or a doctorate, and so on. People here are of different levels. But a candidate for a doctorate degree does not mean he is a jurist, nor does it mean he is a hadith scholar. However, he has enough general culture to understand the scholar's argument. This person is not equal to that layperson. So if the layperson finds himself facing the situation you described, what does he do? He exerts effort to the best of his ability. What is this effort? Here, the effort is not in religious knowledge, but rather that he looks, for example, at one of the scholars who is pious, righteous, well-known, and attested to be so, while the second scholar is unknown to him. This does not require knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah. So the soul then finds peace in following the opinion of the pious, righteous scholar known for his righteousness and piety. This is one scenario. They may, for example, be equal in fame among the people, both being righteous, pious, and scrupulous, and so on. But one of them may be an old hand in knowledge, while the other is a newcomer in knowledge; so his soul finds peace in following the first one rather than the second, and so on.
So the matter does not require, as I said earlier, that he exert effort to find peace in his soul, nor that he be a blind follower. The matter does not require much religious knowledge. Rather, it requires that anyone who asks a question and receives contradictory answers from two eminent scholars, and so on, should perform this weighing of opinions so that his soul finds peace in taking the opinion of one of them. In that case, he has fulfilled the obligatory duty. So you observe now, in this situation you described and I am answering, that he does not need to be a scholar, nor a student of knowledge, but rather one of the general Muslim public. This was how the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) were. For example, if a fatwa came to them from one of the scholars, they would adopt it. They did not become biased toward the second scholar whom they were accustomed to asking constantly and forever. But the means of knowledge were not available at that time in a way that would expose knowledge to the general public in a manner that could not be accessed except after many years. And so this problem occurred in the modern era. In the past, it took a long time for the opinion of the second scholar to reach the person who had asked the first one. Now, in a single moment, you hear in the East someone saying this, and you hear in the West someone saying that; so a contradiction arises. The solution for the general Muslim public is this personal observation that I mentioned earlier.