Blindly following Scholars is prohibited,
and it is not allowed for anyone to accept the speech of anyone else
without proof. Allah says:
"Follow what has been sent down to you from
your Lord and do not follow any other awliya besides Him. Little do you
remember of admonition." [al-A’raf:3]
"And when they are asked to follow what Allah has revealed they say: but we follow the ways of our fathers, even
though their fathers were void of wisdom and guidance." [al-Baqarah:170]
Allah praised people who did not follow blindly by saying:
"So announce the good news to My servants –
those who listen to the Word and follow the best of it; those are the
ones whom Allah has guided and those are the ones endued with
understanding." [az-Zumar:17-18]
Let not any person take for granted the
blessing of Allah in that He may have guided him, and that as a given he
is endued with understanding. Allah also says:
"And if you disagree about anything, refer
it back to Allah and the Messenger, if you do believe in Allah and the
Last Day." [an-Nisaa:59]
So Allah did not allow
disagreement to be returned to anything other than the Qur’aan and the
Sunnah of His Prophet (saws). It is also agreed
upon by consensus of all of the Companions, from
the first to the last, and consensus of all the second generation of
Muslimeen from the first to the last, that it is not allowed to accept
every single thing a person from them or after them says.
Know, then, that whoever accepts every
single statement of Abu Hanifah, or Malik, or ash-Shafi’i or Ahmad Ibn
Hanbal even if they are capable of inspecting and
delving into matters, without leaving any of it off, has went against
the consensus of the entire Muslim world, and followed other than the
path of Allah. We seek refuge with Him from this station. Additionally,
these great men prohibited people from blindly following them and other
than them, so whoever blindly follows them has went against them. Also,
what exactly is it which has made them better than the Ameer
al-Mu’mineen ‘Umar Ibnul-Khattab, or ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib, or Ibn ‘Abbas,
or ‘Aishah, the mother of the believers? Were
blindly following Scholars allowed, the latter group would take
precedence over Abu Hanifah, Malik, ash-Shafi’i or Ahmad. Whoever
attributes himself to these men yet claims that he is not blindly
following them is the first person to know his own lie, followed by
everyone who hears him. This is because we see him support every
statement which he knows from the chosen Scholars, even if he never
heard the statement before that moment. This is the textbook definition
of blindly following the Scholar.
Each individual must exercise his own
independent reasoning to the best of his ability. The proof of that is
what we mentioned earlier from the Texts regarding that, and Allah did not differentiate between the Scholar and the
layman in that:
"And your Lord is not forgetful." [Maryam:64]
If they quote the Words of Allah:
"Ask the people of knowledge." [al-Anbiya:7]
Then we say to them: The people of knowledge
is not a single person. Lying upon Allah is not
permissible, and we only ask the people of knowledge to inform us based
on what they know of the commandments of Allah which have come upon the tongue of His Messenger (saws), not upon something those people laid down for us.
Additionally, we say to the one who allows blind following for the
layman: Inform us, who do you blindly follow? If he says a Scholar from
Egypt, we say: If there were two Scholars in Egypt, then what happens?
Does the layman accept the opinion of whichever one he wishes? This is a
new religion, and that there be two different rulings in one issue –
say, permitted and prohibited at the same time – is not something
ordained by Allah.
What is even more astonishing is that the
layman of Andalusia is obligated to blindly follow the views of Malik,
and in Yemen those of ash-Shafi’i, and in Khorosan those of Abu Hanifah
yet all of their opinions are conflicting. Is this the Deen of Allah? He
never commanded this; rather, the Deen is one and the Judgment of Allah has been clarified to us;
"Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found therein many contradictions." [an-Nisaa:82]
But the layman or the faraway man from Ghana
and those like them who have reverted to Islam know exactly what the
Islam to which they reverted is, and that it is to choose Allah as the
only object of worship, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah (saws), and that he has reverted to the Deen
with which Muhammad the Messenger of Allah (saws) came and this is not hidden from any person who has entered
Islam even just now. How, then, can it be lost upon someone who has a
measure of knowledge? There is no doubt in this, so the questioner asks
about what Allah has ordered in the Deen which the
questioner entered, and so Allah has obligated
the Scholar to say when asked: Is this what Allah and His Messenger (saws) have ordained? If the
Scholar said yes then the answer must be accepted, and if the scholar
said no, or stayed silent, or hesitates, or quotes the speech of a human
being other than the Prophet (saws), then the
asker’s knowledge has increased as has his ability to independently
reason. The layman must then ask: Is this authentically reported from
the Prophet (saws) or not? If his knowledge has
increased then he should ask if the chain of narration is sound or
broken, whether it contains trustworthy reporters or not. And if his
knowledge has increased beyond that, then he should ask about the
statements and proofs associated with them, and this leads to a gradual
increase in knowledge. We ask that Allah makes us
from those people.
All that Allah has
prescribed for us is to follow His Messenger Muhammad (saws), so whoever follows him faithfully with his heart and
his speech has been guided, and he is a true believer whether this
faith is from reason and introspection or not. Allah did not burden mankind with such an obligation, and did not
order us to pray for more than that nor did the Khulafa and the
righteous pray for that. Whoever narrates a false statement attributed
to the Prophet (saws) and he does not know that
the statement is false then he is rewarded one time due to his
statement: “When the ruler passes a judgment and errs, he is rewarded
one time. If he passes a judgment and is correct, he is rewarded twice.”
This is as he (saws) said, and every person
who enters into an issue has essentially made a ruling on it by
accepting it, and exercised independent judgment; this is the person who
exercises independent judgment and not other than this. This is because
such judgment is the exercise of effort in requesting the ruling on
some matter within the Deen through the Qur’aan, the Prophetic Sunnah and
Ijma’; Allah ordered the rulings of His Deen to
be taken from these sources and nowhere else. Whoever arrives to the
correct ruling in that is rewarded twice, and whoever arrives to an
incorrect ruling through that process is still rewarded once and has not
earned a bad deed.
As for someone who blindly follows any
person other than the Prophet (saws) and that
person’s ruling just so happens to concur with the Prophet’s (saws) ruling, then the follower would still be a
sinner in front of Allah due to his blind
following and would not be rewarded for his action just so happening to
concur with the truth. How can this be, one might ask? This is because
the follower did not intend to follow the truth, and if he also follows
an erroneous judgment then he earns two bad deeds – for his blind
following and for his opposition to the truth, and he will not ever be
rewarded in the matter. We seek refuge with Allah
from such a lowly station.
[An-Nubadh - By al-Imaam Abu Muhammad ‘Ali Ibn Hazm al-Andulusi (rahimahUllah)]
INSHA'ALLAH TO FURTHER READ/VIEW SIMILAR POSTS, CLICK:
- The 4 Imams & other Ulama on Blind Following !
- Shirk of Obedience !
- Between following the Evidence, and Imitating the Scholars...
- Our Stance Towards the Differences Amongst the Scholars...
- 2 + 2 = 5 (WATCH then READ and RELATE) !
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