In a conversation with a brother who was trying to tell me that we need to find the strongest opinion and follow that and not follow one Imam, This is how the conversation went: (This conversation was through email, hence the style of speech and typing)
I had mentioned to the brother that I was going to send him a statement by Shaykh Uthaymeen:
First I sent the link
It is important to follow 1 Imam, I'll send you a link to what Shaykh Uthaymeen says about it
So the Brother replied
I am not sayin dont stick to an imam, we need to take from these scholars in order to understand the Quran and Hadith. They are there so that we dont follow are whims and desires. But you must not do taqleed on one imam. We need to dive in the sea to grab the pebbles (knowledge)
If we just follow one imam then we wont be able to that.
If we just follow one imam then we wont be able to that.
My reply
"We are not capable of doing this, when it comes to fiqh the best of the best was the first three generations, khairul quroon."
They did all this for us. Now the only thing i geuss that we can dive into is the Quran, there is not one scholar alive today or has been alive in the last 1000 years who meets the calibre of the four imams.
From the scholars of today, we can take fatwas for today, every thing else is done for us.
Do you agree?"
The Brother replied
When it comes to fiqh you cant just open up a book you need to study their past
My Reply to him "In the commentry of al hidaya, a fiqh manual which i have, it is said that there are 1260000 masa'il of fiqh. Thats one million two hundred and sixty thousand masa'il. You going to try to find the strogest opinion, you will be wasting your time. Imam Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaibah tried to do it and he said he found 125 masa'il that could be questioned. From that 125, 60 of them were proven to be wrong, thats 65 that can be questioned. Even these 65 had been given evidence to back it up."
"So who are we and what are we going to do. No scholar, not even all of them put together can match the 4 great imams.
There arent any faqihs, no muhaddith, only scholars who have learnt from them.
You would be wasting your time & fooling your self. Any scholar who even tries to become a faqih in this day & age will fail."
Sent from my Windows® phone.
This conversation ended here and after a few days Alhumdolillah I met the brother who then told me about his teacher, and that his teacher has exlained the impotrtance of Taqleed to him and that it is a "Must". (The teacher is of The Salafi school teaching Hanbali fiqh)
SubhanAllah, when I thought of the name "Ahl al-Sunnat al-Mansukha wa 'l-Tajdid." 'The people of abrogated Sunnah and evolution' Instead of "Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat", I feel like I couldnt have been wrong about the Evolution theory.
To clarify what I mean please see forum regarding the explanation