Discussion on following the schools of jurisprudence and the book (Al-Lamadhabiyyah) by al-Bouti.

The questioner : Well, the majority of people, most of them, either follow one imam or follow a group of imams. That is, in this issue they follow al-Shafi'i, in the second issue they follow al-Hanafi, and in the third, for example, they follow Malik. Or they are committed to the opinion of one of them, whichever one they find it easy to access. Of course, after they have trusted that this school or this imam was correct in most of his matters. They cannot look into detailed issues, of course, the common people cannot delve into them. So what is required of every layman...

The Shaykh : You are repeating the statement for which I gave the example of the screen and the intelligent computer. You are repeating it now? Do not forget what I said earlier. I said just now that the common people cannot know the details of the issues, and they cannot know their evidence, even if a scholar wanted to explain it to them, they would not be able to understand it.

The questioner : So it is not wrong for a person to follow a specific imam?

The Shaykh : I am sorry that perhaps this is the first time we are meeting and such a conversation is taking place. It seems that this conversation must be repeated until it becomes clear to the listener what I mean. Perhaps you will now remember what I have said more than once. We, may Allah bless you, distinguish between taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), which is necessary even for the great scholars, and religion through taqlid. Have you heard the phrase "religion through taqlid"?

The questioner : I heard.

The Shaykh : Well, has the difference become clear to you or not? The difference has not become clear to you?

The questioner : The difference has become clear to me, but I am building on my previous study...

The questioner : No problem, tell me, what is the difference now between the taqlid that I say a scholar who performs independent legal reasoning might follow, and religion through taqlid? What is the difference?

The questioner : Taqlid is following a person, whether he is right or wrong, meaning his school is just taqlid.

The Shaykh : So you have understood, so stick to it. Now we return to your question, I return it to you. Are the masses of Muslims today not on this?

The questioner : I do not think so.

The Shaykh : How?

The questioner : That the masses of Muslims, one person knows this issue.

The Shaykh : No, no, not knowing; we are not saying knowing now. Now, may Allah bless you, when one says "the masses of Muslims," does it include the scholars, and it includes the students of knowledge, and it includes those below them, correct?

The questioner : Correct, all Muslims.

The Shaykh : All Muslims. Now I have mentioned three categories: the scholars, the students of knowledge, and those below them, the common Muslims. When the word "masses" is applied, which of the three categories does the name "masses" predominantly apply to?

The questioner : The third.

The Shaykh : Is that not so?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So I mean these people. What is your opinion after I have defined it for you with this definition?
Abu Layla : Doctor, let your question stem from al-Bouti's book, then you will probably get the answer as you want.

The Shaykh : No, I am correcting you because you have cut the chain of research between me and him. Because I clarified to him that in the Islamic world there are three layers. The smallest layer is the scholars, and slightly larger is the students of knowledge. And if we want to philosophize a little more in speech, we would divide the students of knowledge into sections and say these many sections, and the detail does not concern us. The smallest of them are the students of Islamic jurisprudence, correct? Look, what is the proportion? What remains? The masses remain. Do the masses include students of knowledge other than Islamic jurisprudence, correct or not?

The questioner : Correct.

The Shaykh : Now I have placed myself with the doctor in this reality. Most of the Islamic world is from the third category, which includes students of knowledge other than Islamic jurisprudence. Well, these people, does the doctor not agree with me that this one is Hanafi and this one is Shafi'i? May Allah reward you with good, I am satisfied. As he said, some of them follow a specific school, and some said they do not follow a specific school. I was afraid, I was truly afraid that he would say they follow four schools. I was afraid he would say that. But praise be to Allah, he did not say it. (laughs)The Shaykh : (may Allah have mercy on him) Do you see how it is? But we now take this majority, most of whom are from the category that does not know. These people, Doctor, each one of them, if he were more ignorant than Abu Jahl, would come to...The Shaykh : ...and ask him about an issue.The Shaykh : What does he say to him? What is your school? He says to him, my master...The Shaykh : ...I swore an oath that such and such, and they said my wife is divorced. He says to him, what is your school, my son? He says to him, I am Hanafi. Is this statement correct or not?

The questioner : I do not agree with it.

The Shaykh : Do not blame me. Are you not living in this society?

The questioner : No problem, I cannot say it is correct, and I am not convinced that it is correct, because I have not seen this.

The Shaykh : That is it. I am telling you, you are living in this society, so how do you want to discuss the topic?

The questioner : I discuss through the people I see, and I judge the rest, and only the category you are talking about...

The Shaykh : The ones you saw, in which category do you put them for me? I am not imposing my opinion on you.

The questioner : The third category.

The Shaykh : Well, that is it.

The questioner : Only the third category, not most of it, from what you described to me as being committed to a school, meaning he says to the shaykh, I want it according to such and such school.

The Shaykh : Meaning you do not want it, meaning you want to say he follows four schools?

The questioner : Not four schools.

The Shaykh : So what does he follow?

The questioner : If it is easy for him and he sees one of the imams he trusts in the issue, he follows it.

The Shaykh : My brother, are these the masses or are these few? Glory be to Allah! These are the ones we are talking about, we know them. But do they represent? Let us give a very, very small example. The Islamic world is like one hundred people. Of the one hundred people, we say ten of them are scholars and fifteen of them are students of knowledge. What do we have left? Seventy-five, correct. These seventy-five are between Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi, and Hanbali. You come and say some of them, and I know them, perhaps they are like you or better than you. Some of them, if they are convinced by a viewpoint other than the school they grew up in, they follow it. You say to me, yes, but what is the proportion of these people compared to the seventy-five? Majority or minority?

Another questioner : I disagree with you on this...

The Shaykh : No problem, but we need to hear the opinion...

Another questioner : With my knowledge, I proceed. Let me tell you...

The Shaykh : I want to take the answer from here...

Another questioner : ...and so on. I am from the Hanbali school from the Nablus area, from the Hanbalis. But until now, and I swear, I cannot grasp the Hanbali school in everything. We took Islamic religion and learned Islamic religion. We learned it from our teachers and from the shaykhs and others. And I do not know anything of it according to any of the schools. The thing that the scholar takes is that this thing is correct. I saw afterwards that I sometimes read or I come to another scholar and hear from him something somewhat contrary. At that time, I measure in my opinion whether this is correct or that, regardless of which school it is. And I am educated, so what about the common people? Even the person who says I am Hanbali or I am Maliki or I am Shafi'i and does not know exactly what this school is, because no one has read this school, even the books are not available.

The Shaykh : Are you finished?

The questioner : Enough.

The Shaykh : First, I drew your attention to the fact that you have monopolized the conversation between me and the doctor. This is first. And second, you, Professor, are a doctor, not a student of Islamic jurisprudence. And I just now divided people into categories. I said scholars, and I said students of knowledge. Then I divided the students of knowledge into sections that match reality exactly. And I said a section of them are students of Islamic jurisprudence. You, without offense, are not a student of Islamic jurisprudence. Therefore, you are not among those who studied Hanafi jurisprudence and became Hanafi, or studied Shafi'i jurisprudence and became Shafi'i, or Hanbali as you mentioned. You are not among those, and therefore you do not represent the majority that I am talking about. You represent a layer of people who studied modern scientific culture that has no relation to Islamic culture. But they have some awareness and attention and intellect and thinking that is not rigid, and not dull and stupid, so they use their intellect and see, and Allah...The Shaykh : ...such and such person says this andThe Shaykh : So-and-so says this—may Allah have mercy on you—he does some independent legal reasoning and thinking within his limits, and acts on what his soul finds peace in and what opens his chest; but you are in one world and I am in another. I am speaking about students of the Shari'ah colleges, and I am speaking about Dr. al-Bouti and others like him who study the Shari'ah. Look at what they say? Is it obligatory to adhere to a specific school of jurisprudence or not? I am now going back to the doctor to ask him what Dr. al-Bouti’s answer is to this question? At that point, he will know that my previous statement is what is represented today in the Muslim world as a third section, which is the majority, if Dr. al-Bouti explicitly states in some of his papers that adhering to a specific school of jurisprudence is obligatory, and not adhering to a specific school of jurisprudence is the bridge to irreligion and atheism, and this is a man who studies the Shari'ah, so what do we say? So do not blame me if you are a doctor and the professor is a doctor, he has not studied these problems and these issues at all, and his book explicitly states what we are saying?
Al-Halabi: From its title

The Shaykh: From its title
Al-Halabi: "Non-sectarianism is the most dangerous religious innovation threatening the Islamic Shari'ah."

The questioner: Have you read it?

The Shaykh: But... he has not read it.

The questioner: Only its content is not like that.

The Shaykh: No problem...

The questioner: Why did I ask you if you read it? Because its title is not like that.

The Shaykh: No problem, no problem, meaning you are benefiting us with a new benefit, may Allah reward you with good, that the title is not well-titled.

The questioner: I said... it is clear.

The Shaykh: No problem, be patient, the one who is not well-titled, the title that he hears, no matter what his culture is, he condemns it, and you are with us in this condemnation, so bring the well-titled one, what is it?

The questioner: The well-titled one is that at the end of the discussion he says that the one who wants to follow a specific school of jurisprudence...

The Shaykh: There is no end to the discussion, my brother, the paper is composed, it is not the end of the discussion, it is not the content of the paper, what is its content?

The questioner: That the one who wants to follow one specific school of jurisprudence can follow it and there is no blame on him, and the one who wants to follow a school or take a path or follow several schools of jurisprudence, meaning in this issue he follows al-Shafi'i and in the second issue he follows al-Hanbali, so there is no blame on him, this is if he is from the general public.

The Shaykh: That is enough, that is enough.

The questioner: Of course, the student of knowledge is different from the scholar, the scholar, but if he is truly a scholar, he must reach the correct thing with his culture and his study.

The Shaykh: Who is he responding to in the paper that you say you are its reader and, God willing, its digester and understander? Who is he responding to?

The questioner: He responded to al-Khujandi’s paper.

The Shaykh: What does al-Khujandi say?

The questioner: Al-Khujandi, I tried to get his correct paper; because I wanted to rely on the book itself, and on the response to the book, and on the commentary on the book a third time, and I asked my brother Abu Ahmad to bring me the paper and bring me the response to al-Bouti’s paper.

The Shaykh: You did not answer me, you did not answer me, what do I need to wait for you to bring al-Khujandi’s paper, may Allah have mercy on him, I am telling you, did you not understand?

The questioner: What I understood from al-Khujandi’s paper

The Shaykh : That is it.

The questioner: That the person who has only the books of hadith and the books of the Sunnah available to him can distinguish between them and compare them, and he must not rely on the opinion of so-and-so or so-and-so.

The Shaykh: You now used the word "only," does al-Khujandi say this?

The questioner: I did not tell you that al-Khujandi says this, I understood this from the paper, my master, this is how I understood it from the paper.

The Shaykh: I ask you a question—may Allah be pleased with you—did you understand that he says this only, that he has how many books of hadith?

The questioner : Yes, yes.

The Shaykh: No, that is not correct, meaning he does not give weight to the sayings of the Companions, the Tabi'un, the jurists, and the independent legal reasoners?

The questioner : Yes, yes.

The Shaykh: That is what you understood from al-Bouti’s paper, this is the very fabrication.

The questioner: That is why I asked my brother Abu Ahmad for the paper so that I could take from the source.

The Shaykh: I understand, we know that your methodology is correct, we just tell you what did you understand from al-Bouti?

The questioner : That is what I understood.

The Shaykh : This is an accident.
Al-Halabi : The Shaykh : He does not blame you for this.

The Shaykh : No.

The questioner: I did not want to tell you what al-Khujandi says because I cannot say it, because this is how I understood it from al-Bouti.

The Shaykh: You are saying that al-Bouti says about al-Khujandi this?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh: Yes, and your memorization that you displayed is something to be thanked for; but I tell you that al-Khujandi does not say this which Dr. al-Bouti makes you understand, and one of the wonders is that you say that al-Bouti is wrong in his title, and correct in the well-titled one, and this has never happened, a man who is a scholar and a doctor in a Shari'ah college and studies the Shari'ah and so on, does not know how to put a title on a paper except against the content of the paper? By Allah, it is one of the great sins; my brother, Dr. al-Bouti denies the cultured Muslims today who study what is called today in his college comparative jurisprudence, and they compare the evidence of the schools of jurisprudence with each other, so these cultured people who study comparative jurisprudence and put the books of the Sunnah in their hands to study the evidence of both sides to see which school’s evidence is stronger than the evidence of the second school, they say this is what we must take, this is what al-Bouti denies, it is not that al-Bouti denies a person who comes, as it is said, from behind the cows, saying I want to understand from the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and he is not good at reciting a verse from the Book of Allah or a hadith from the Messenger of Allah; because this is a matter agreed upon to be denied, do you understand me or not?

The questioner: I understand you.

The Shaykh: There is no person then.