Explanation of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “So ask the people of knowledge if you do not know.”

The Shaykh : And I proceed in what I am saying from the principle of the saying of Allah the Exalted: And as you all know, our righteous predecessors are the generation about whom we can be certain that they understood the Book and the Sunnah correctly and also applied it practically. Therefore, I say in some of my words, lectures, or gatherings that it is not sufficient today for us to say, “We call to the Book and the Sunnah and stand by them,” but we must add to that that it is in accordance with the methodology of the righteous predecessors. You must have heard something of this from me or from others. Accordingly, we should return to the majority of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who are the vast majority in terms of being the ones to whom the Qur’anic address is directed: Here there are questioners and those who answer, and the answerers are the fewer.
Abu Malik: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And peace be upon you, Muhammad Shuqara. We return to the noble verse We said that the known and established fact is that the Salaf applied this verse. In what I have learned and come across from the narrations and reports of the Salaf, when a questioner would ask one of the Companions about a matter, he would answer him with what he had and would not strain himselfThe questioner : to say: What is your proof for what you are saying? Rather, he would apply the verse according to its apparent meaning. And one of the clearest pieces of evidence for that is the story of the Companion who was in that military expedition and was wounded in his body, so he became in a state of major ritual impurity. He mentioned his situation to some of those around him, asking if they could find a dispensation for him to perform dry ablution with clean earth. They said: No, you must perform the full ritual bath. So he performed the full ritual bath, and his life was in it. When the news reached the Messenger, he said: The point is that thisThe questioner : wounded man asked and was answered. He thought that the one answering was among those whom Allah referred to in And in this manner, there are dozens of examples in the biography of the righteous Salaf: they would ask and be answered, and the answerers, if they were certain of the answer, would be content with that; otherwise, they would say, "This is my opinion. If I am right, it is from Allah, and if I am wrong, it is from myself." And on this basis, I understand from the verse that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) divided the Muslim community, in terms of knowledge, into two categories: the knowledgeable and the non-knowledgeable. And He made obligatory upon each of the two categories a specific command. So He made it obligatory upon the non-knowledgeable to ask the knowledgeable, and that is enough. And they must proceed after hearing the answer. Of course, when we understand from the verse that the Islamic society is divided into these two categories.

The questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. It does not escape me that the category upon whom asking is obligatory can be divided into sections, meaning an illiterate who does not read or write and does not understand anything, and a student of knowledge, and a strong student of knowledge, and stronger, and so on, in various levels. And so on. But even a student of knowledge, if he believes that the one he is asking is from the people of knowledge, his obligation—and here, as they say, is the crux of the matter—his obligation is to hasten to implement what is in his place. Then afterwards, if it appears to him that there is an opinion or an answer more correct than the previous answer, that many of the great scholars have retracted their statements, as is well known. And at the forefront of these is 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, who issued a ruling in one of the cases of inheritance, and then after a year or so, he issued a ruling with another opinion. So it was said to him, “You previously issued a ruling thus and so.” He said, “That was based on what we used to rule, and this is what we rule now.” So the opinion of a scholar may differ and change. And this, in reality, opens for me a door to two things.

Another questioner : Well, a question about this report, O our Shaykh, and the report is from 'Umar: “This is based on what we used to rule.”