The issue of taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) and itiba' (following) in the authentication and weakening of hadiths.

Another questioner : May Allah reward you. Regarding the issue where those who practice taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) use it as an excuse to refute those who call to the Book and the Sunnah and care for hadith, they say that accepting the authentication and weakening of a hadith is of the same nature as accepting a scholar's opinion in matters of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Al-San'ani refuted this in his well-known treatise *Irsad al-Nuqad* (Guidance for Critics), distinguishing between accepting a scholar's opinion in matters of fiqh and accepting a hadith scholar's opinion in authenticating and weakening hadiths. He stated that authenticating and weakening hadiths is based on accepting the report of a single just and trustworthy narrator, which is a matter of consensus. He also stated that authenticating and weakening hadiths is based on the abundance of information regarding the specific chain of narration, the men involved, and similar matters. Furthermore, he stated that disagreement in authenticating and weakening hadiths is based on differences in the availability or unavailability of this information. Is this statement correct? And what is your opinion regarding those who have raised the objection that there are points in which the hadith scholar, authenticator, or weakener may differ in view, based on their connection to a matter of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning)?

The Shaykh : OAbu Layla

The questioner: Yes, Shaykh

The Shaykh : Alert your guest, Doctor, not to eat with his left hand. Yes.

The questioner : So, what is your opinion, Your Eminence, regarding this point?

The Shaykh : My brother, I see that the problem is not that the hadith is based on itiba' (following), which is commanded, and that this contradicts taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), which is prohibited. This is not the problem. Because I personally am not convinced in my own heart of this distinction. First, as a personal conviction, I see no difference between a Muslim following a mujtahid (a scholar qualified to derive rulings) in his statement that something is haram (forbidden)—where that prohibition is undoubtedly based on a verse or a sahih (valid) hadith in his view—and our following or imitating him in his statement that the hadith upon which I based that ruling of prohibition is sahih (valid) in my view. I think that if we frame the issue in this form of distinguishing between taqlid in fiqh and itiba' in hadith, we will not succeed in answering, at least I personally, because I am not convinced of the difference between the two. Perhaps the previous example clarifies this for you. When the mujtahid says that musical instruments are haram (forbidden), we ask him, "What is the evidence?" He says, "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: and so on. Our following him—I would weigh following (itiba') and imitation (taqlid) against each other, because in the end, we want to settle on one of the two terms. Since our naming of our following of the Imam's statement of prohibition in a matter as "following" rather than "imitation," or the opposite, calling it "imitation" rather than "following"—the naming, as is not hidden from you, I believe, does not change the reality of the named things, correct?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So, if we follow the command of Allah the Exalted, whether in authenticating or weakening hadiths, or in declaring something haram (forbidden) or halal (lawful), we have followed the command of Allah. So call it what you will, taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) or itiba' (following). I say this, and I am one of those who distinguish between ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), itiba' (following), and taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), so do not think that I am with those who do not distinguish between ijtihad, itiba', and taqlid. But now we are in a partial discussion, and the question was raised about this just now. I do not want us to direct the research to whether, if I follow al-Bukhari in his authentication of a certain hadith or his weakening of another, this is itiba' (following) or taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence). This is not what matters to us now. What matters to us is: Am I, who am not a scholar of authentication and weakening, obligated to use my mind and opinion, and my mind rather than my desires, to authenticate and weaken based on my ignorance? Or am I obligated to follow this scholar? He said, "I said it," he said, "It is sahih (valid)," I said, "It is sahih (valid)," he said, "It is da'if (weak)," I said, "It is da'if (weak)." Similarly, on the other hand, if Imam al-Shafi'i or other Imams say, "This is haram (forbidden)" or "This is ja'iz (permissible),"

Another questioner : Peace be upon you

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, mercy, and blessings. I have adopted his statement. I am not now in the process of investigating whether this adoption is itiba' (following) or taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence). But I do not think there is disagreement on the fact that there is no disagreement on this ruling. That is, I, considering that I am not a scholar but am addressed by something like the saying of Allah the Exalted: and I asked a scholar, "Is this haram (forbidden) or halal (lawful)?" He said to me, "It is haram (forbidden)," so I adopted it. I do not say now that I followed him, nor do I say now that I imitated him. Because now we do not want to delve into this specific issue. So, did I follow the Shari'ah in this case or not? There is no doubt that the answer is yes. I did what is obligatory upon me because I obeyed His saying: I asked Imam al-Bukhari or his like about a hadith, and he said, "It is sahih (valid)," so I followed him. And he said about another hadith, "It is da'if (weak)," so I adopted it... We enter the core of the answer without deviating to the distinction between itiba' (following) and taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence). Perhaps research on this will come soon, if Allah wills. If everyone who adopts the statement of the Imam who authenticates and weakens, the hadith scholar who authenticates or weakens, and everyone who adopts the statement of the Imam who forbids or permits, and who is ignorant, has implemented the Shari'ah ruling, we are now asking those who raised this question: Are you with us in that it is obligatory for every Muslim who is not a scholar to follow the faqih (a jurist) in his fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the hadith scholar in his hadith, or not? Now I direct the question to you: Does not this question refute them?

The questioner : What appears, of course, is that it refutes them.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : What appears, of course, is that it refutes them.

The Shaykh : Well done, with this reservation. (laughs)The Shaykh : (may Allah have mercy on him)—So what is their answer, in your opinion, based on your contact with them and listening to their doubts? As for me, I say they have no answer. And in that case, they will meet us against their wills. This meeting obligates them to be with us, not us. Because we, at the time when we do not distinguish between the obligation of following for the common ignorant person, we do not distinguish between the obligation of his following or adopting the statement of the hadith scholar, and his adopting the statement of the faqih (a jurist). Similarly, they, on the other hand, based on this appearance that I indicated just now, they also must not distinguish between their adopting, or we call it their taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), because they are the ones who adopt this term and do not deny it at all. In that case, they must adopt with us, just as they imitate their fuqaha (jurists), they must imitate their hadith scholars. So they meet us in the obligation of acting on both matters, as I indicated, and they differ from us in practice, for they do not at all resort to the statement of the hadith scholars. And by that, they lose the efforts of thousands of hadith scholars throughout these long centuries, and then they freeze on following dozens or hundreds of fuqaha (jurists) merely by taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence). So now we reverse the question on them. And if you perceive a fear, all you have to do is reverse the question on them. Say to us, "What is the difference between us and you? What do you deny against us? We imitate the Imams in authentication and weakening?" Their answer will be like this, is it not?

The questioner : Of course.

The Shaykh : Here, the answer does not require indication. Here, the answer is certain. Good. So we imitate the hadith scholars, in their expression, in authentication and weakening, acting on the saying of Allah the Exalted: So what is your position regarding this great, massive generation of Muslim hadith scholars, whom your fuqaha (jurists) cannot do without following, or if you wish, you say imitating? They do not give weight to their efforts, and therefore they are in ignorance, stumbling, and do not distinguish between the sahih (valid) hadith and the da'if (weak) hadith. Knowing that many of their later, imitating fuqaha (jurists) take from those who preceded them among the great fuqaha (jurists) in their madhhab (school of jurisprudence), or take upon them, dozens of weak hadiths, and much of them are from the fabricated hadiths. So the fuqaha (jurists) themselves, the imitators, are with us in the obligation of referring to the hadith scholars in authentication and weakening. So what is the matter with these imitators who want to establish the argument against us, claiming that we deny taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) and fall into taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence)? Now we delve into that topic which I postponed just now: Are we like them in taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence)? The answer: There is a vast difference between us and them. What does the poet say?
"So where is the Pleiades from the dust, and where is Mu'awiyah from 'Ali?"
First of all, we differ from them completely. We do not worship Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) through taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence); as for them, they worship through taqlid. Is that clear?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : I am asking you, what is missing from me? Stay with me.

The questioner: With you, our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : We differ from them completely. We do not worship through taqlid; as for them, they worship through taqlid. That is, these millions of followers of taqlid: one says, "I am a Hanafi," another says, "I am a Shafi'i," the third says, "I am a Maliki," and the fourth says, "I am a Hanbali." There is no one in the group opposing them—and by them I mean us, the people of hadith, the people of the Sunnah, the people of the Salaf (the earliest generations) who belong to following them. We Salafis (a follower of the Salaf) are not like them, because there is no one among us who says, "I am a Bukhari," meaning I only accept what al-Bukhari authenticated and what al-Bukhari weakened. Similarly, you will not find among us anyone who says, "I am a Muslimi," if that is the expression, or "I am an Ahmadi," and so on. Therefore, you will find, as a marker and a completely real example, this man Al-Albani, who was afflicted by some of his righteous companions who helped him in good and research and verification, and so on. He was also afflicted by others who followed his path but contradicted him in dozens of hadiths. Why? Because they agree with us in the principle that there is no taqlid of a specific person; rather, we follow what? The evidence, with whoever it is and wherever it is. As for the followers of taqlid, they are not like that. Here comes the previous poem, the beginning of which I mentioned earlier:
"This difference between us is sufficient, and every vessel emits what is in it."
So we say to the followers of taqlid, in other words, we do not deny taqlid in its mere form. I hope this idea is clear to us all. We do not deny the principle of taqlid, but we deny worshipping through taqlid and making it a religious school and a religion from which one does not deviate by a hair's breadth. That is what we deny. As for following a scholar in whom we trust his knowledge, which you call taqlid, this is obligatory (wajib). What matters to us now is the naming: taqlid or following? We call it following. Why? Because of the difference between us and them. If an error by this scholar becomes apparent to us, we leave it and reject his statement, rejecting it as one rejects a pomegranate seed. Meanwhile, they worship with it based on the common proverb, "A spear, even if it flies." A spear, even if it flies. Or based on the story that was told: "Give me a camel," he said, "No, it is a camel, it is a camel," and he kept saying, "Give me a camel," and so on. So we deny worshipping through taqlid, but we do not deny taqlid as a necessity that the greatest scholar in the world must resort to. The greatest scholar in the world cannot escape taqlid, because if we ask a scholar about a matter that requires precision, there is no doubt that when this scholar is asked about such a precise matter, his subconscious mind works better than the computers made by humans today. In moments like lightning, it recalls the verses and hadiths that revolve around what was asked, and he comes up with an answer in this rapid form that flashed through the mind of the scholar who was asked. He cannot display it on a screen, embodied and clear in its features for all people, even the common folk, so that they are completely convinced and follow this imam following what? With clear insight? No, here it is only that the scholar so-and-so said such-and-such, and we are commanded to follow him. Do you not feel with me that there are such precise matters in Islam? It is necessary. So what is obligatory for the common people? That they say, "We asked so-and-so, and he answered with such-and-such," and we believe that the man is a scholar and a virtuous person, and so on. But if it becomes apparent to thisThe questioner : that this answer is wrong, he does not cling to it, because he is not a follower of taqlid who worships through taqlid as the masses of people do. Perhaps in this lies the end...

The questioner : O our masterThe Shaykh : The masses of people—what is meant by them? Does it mean all the other schools of jurisprudence, meaning everyone except the Salafis or the people of hadith?

The Shaykh : I am not speaking about the schools of jurisprudence, may Allah reward you. Be patient with me. I am speaking about the followers of the schools of jurisprudence.

The questioner : It is the followers.

The Shaykh : There is a difference between the followers of the schools of jurisprudence and the schools of jurisprudence themselves, correct?

The questioner : Correct.

The Shaykh : Fine, and especially since you asked whom I am speaking about? I am speaking about those who exist today on the face of the earth. Whom do these people follow?

The questioner : I mean, if someone came...

The Shaykh : No, excuse me, do you want to answer me so that I don't lose my question?