What are the causes of jurisprudential differences and the stance toward them?
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Question:
We often hear that there is scholarly disagreement regarding certain jurisprudential rulings. What are the causes of this disagreement? And what should a person do in that regard? Does he choose whichever of the two opinions he wants, or the easier one, or the stricter one? Or what does he do?
Answer:
Disagreement exists among scholars in some issues, specifically in the subsidiary issues, not in the fundamentals. The fundamentals are agreed upon, and praise be to Allah. However, there are some subsidiary issues: some issues of prayer, some issues of zakah, some issues of fasting, some issues of Hajj, and some issues of transactions, in which there is disagreement among scholars.
The causes of disagreement are matters:
Among them is the difference in understanding: people’s understandings are not the same. One person understands something from the text, while another understands the opposite. People’s understandings differ, and their intelligence differs.
Among them is the failure to memorize the evidence: one person memorizes much of the evidence, while another memorizes only a little.
Among them is the completeness of the eagerness to seek the truth and its weakness: some people have complete eagerness to seek the evidence and to be diligent with it, until they fulfill the requirement. Other people are lax in seeking the evidence and are satisfied with a little, so they err.
There are other causes as well.
It is obligatory for the believer in issues of disagreement, if he is a student of knowledge, to scrutinize the evidence, look into the evidence, and adopt the evidence whose meaning becomes clear to him, and which some of the scholars who came before him held. He agrees with them if it becomes clear to him that the truth is with them based on the evidence: from a verse or a hadith. He does not follow his desires or follow the easier path. He does not adopt the evidence, even if it is stricter, as long as it becomes clear to him that it is closer to the evidence of the Shari'ah.
As for one who is not a student of knowledge, or a young student who is not capable of understanding the evidence, he asks the scholars, he asks the teachers, especially the best of them, and those in whom he perceives goodness, diligence, understanding, and knowledge. He asks them and strives; so that they may guide him to the correct path.
We often hear that there is scholarly disagreement regarding certain jurisprudential rulings. What are the causes of this disagreement? And what should a person do in that regard? Does he choose whichever of the two opinions he wants, or the easier one, or the stricter one? Or what does he do?
Answer:
Disagreement exists among scholars in some issues, specifically in the subsidiary issues, not in the fundamentals. The fundamentals are agreed upon, and praise be to Allah. However, there are some subsidiary issues: some issues of prayer, some issues of zakah, some issues of fasting, some issues of Hajj, and some issues of transactions, in which there is disagreement among scholars.
The causes of disagreement are matters:
Among them is the difference in understanding: people’s understandings are not the same. One person understands something from the text, while another understands the opposite. People’s understandings differ, and their intelligence differs.
Among them is the failure to memorize the evidence: one person memorizes much of the evidence, while another memorizes only a little.
Among them is the completeness of the eagerness to seek the truth and its weakness: some people have complete eagerness to seek the evidence and to be diligent with it, until they fulfill the requirement. Other people are lax in seeking the evidence and are satisfied with a little, so they err.
There are other causes as well.
It is obligatory for the believer in issues of disagreement, if he is a student of knowledge, to scrutinize the evidence, look into the evidence, and adopt the evidence whose meaning becomes clear to him, and which some of the scholars who came before him held. He agrees with them if it becomes clear to him that the truth is with them based on the evidence: from a verse or a hadith. He does not follow his desires or follow the easier path. He does not adopt the evidence, even if it is stricter, as long as it becomes clear to him that it is closer to the evidence of the Shari'ah.
As for one who is not a student of knowledge, or a young student who is not capable of understanding the evidence, he asks the scholars, he asks the teachers, especially the best of them, and those in whom he perceives goodness, diligence, understanding, and knowledge. He asks them and strives; so that they may guide him to the correct path.
Source
binbaz.org.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.