Who do you know among the scholars, jurists, and independent legal reasoners in this time?

The questioner : Who do you know among the scholars, jurists, and independent legal reasoners in this time?

The Shaykh : I say, I believeThe Shaykh : Ibn Baz (may Allah preserve him) and may Allah benefit the Muslims through him, he exercises independent legal reasoning in many issues, even though we know he is of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. The nature of any student of a particular school, if he grew up with it and then became aware of some issues that contradict the scriptural evidence, is that his awareness comes after a period of time. And for this reason, his pointing out or his disagreement with the school by following the evidence indicates two things. The first is that he exercises independent legal reasoning and does not follow a scholar without knowing his evidence. The second is that this independent legal reasoning is rare, as I mentioned earlier. And I add to thisThe Shaykh : The honorableThe Shaykh : Ibn Uthaymeen. He is also one of the distinguished scholars of the Saudis, whom we believe that if the truth becomes clear to them by referring to the established evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, they do not act like others who are rigid in adhering to the school of jurisprudence in which they lived, but rather they follow the evidence. However, this is also to a small degree, meaning it is negligible. And as I said earlier, unfortunately, whether due to the scarcity of those responsible for them, or the weakness of my memory, or the narrowness of my academic circle regarding the presence of such people in the outlying regions, I find my memory too dim to recall other examples and models like these two noble men. But I believe that there is, as they say today, in fact, an academic awakening, which is the necessity of returning to the scriptural evidence from the Book and the Sunnah and what the righteous predecessors were upon, and not being rigid in adhering to the school of jurisprudence. There are now in many Islamic countries, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, in the Emirates, and especially in India and Pakistan, many very numerous examples of these people. Even if those who are prominent in the field of independent academic standing have not become famous, there are undoubtedly in Pakistan and in Muslim India a large group or faction called the scholars of hadith. These are, in fact, the ones who spread the practice of acting upon hadith in those lands, and perhaps their call spread to other Islamic countries. So they spread the practice of acting upon hadith and not being bound by the school of jurisprudence, especially since the school that prevails among the Indians and Pakistanis is the Hanafi school. So in those lands, an independent school emerged, the school of the people of hadith, and the group is called the school of the people of hadith. But we have not known among them in our time scholars who are pointed to with the finger as those who work and exercise independent legal reasoning and do not follow a scholar without knowing his evidence. But we find some academic traces left by some of these scholars from the people of hadith that indicate to us that their traces show they were at a high academic level and distant from following a scholar without knowing his evidence, such as, for example, Shams al-Din, what is it?

The questioner : 'Abd al-Haqq al-Abadi

The Shaykh : 'Abd al-Haqq al-Abadi and the author of Tuhfat al-Ahwadhi and others. We believe that they have a virtue in spreading the practice of acting upon the Book and the Sunnah and forbidding the following of the school of jurisprudence. And as I said earlier, also the saying of the poet:
"And when they were counted, they were few, so today they are less than few"
And due to ignorance of the principles of knowledge and the preference between differing opinions, what the jurists call taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) has spread now, unfortunately. You find there are famous scholars, especially in the Egyptian lands, who do not adhere to the school of jurisprudence, but unfortunately they do not adhere to the school of jurisprudence by following their desires, and not by submitting to the evidence that obliges them to contradict their school.