Sh. Taha Karaan QUALIFIES this by saying if a difficulty arises.
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You obviously have not read all of the links i provided. I can tell you that he does not meant difficulty in the same way a deobandi means difficulty.
They mean difficulty like, a shafi does not want to give wheat as sadaqatul fitr, so he give s cash, following the Hanafi view, or a shafi feels it difficult to do tawaf without touching a woman, so he adopts the Hanafi view and his wudu isn't broken by touching a woman. Or they mean a Hanafi is going on a journey on a plane or train , and he want s to combine his salah so he adopts that view. This is the difficult y they mean and this is clear for anyone to see . just read all the links I shared. So this is no major qualification.
Secondly - regarding acting upon ahadith that seemingly contradict one's own madhab:
Quote:
Sh. Taha Karan again QUALIFIES this by saying and I will paraphrase:
c)If still not convinced by your madhab, ONLY THEN do you follow the opinion you want as long as it is within the other madhabs.
The shaykh points out that by the above, one is going into the realms of daleel. This is different to simple taqlid and I would assume that the vast majority are incapable of this. He also says this is how Shah Waliallah rahimahullah explains it also
.
Well your assumption is wrong because anyone can understand that he is clearly speaking about laymen. And this is accepted , and I have confirmed this with other shafis. And if one thinks he is incapable, then he is free to stick to his madhab, but that does not mean the majority is incapable. Even ml ashraf Ali thanwi states that theoretically this permissible for a laymen, and this is quoted in the link I gave to the sh Akram thread.
Read what sh taha writes himself:
[quote]LEAVING THE BOUNDS OF THE MADHHAB
There will inevitably be instances where followers of a particular madhhab come face to face with ahadith to which their madhhab apparently does not conform. What is to be done in such cases? Should the person summarily abandon the teaching of the madhhab in favour of the hadith? Or should he dutifully stick to the madhhab and ignore the hadith?
Neither of these two approaches is free from certain undesirable outcomes. The fuqaha of our madhhab have therefore resolved the issue in a most ingenious manner that addresses both the praiseworthy desire to practice upon the hadith and the apprehension that this may lead to chaotic fiqh. In his introduction to al-Majmu‘ (vol. 1 p. 136) Imam al-Nawawi provides us with the following guidelines:
"Any Shafi‘i who finds a hadith going against his madhhab should look into the matter [as follows]: If he possesses the complete requirements of ijtihad without restriction, or in that chapter, or [even] in that point [alone], he may independently practice upon [the hadith]. If he does not [possess it] and finds it difficult to go against the hadith, and his search for a valid explanation of the hadith [within his madhhab] does not provide a convincing solution, then he may practice upon the hadith with one condition, which is that another independent [mujtahid] imam other than al-Shafi‘i should have practiced upon it. This would then be a valid pretext for him to leave the madhhab of his imam."
It is of interest here to note that all the other major schools of thought have, with varying degrees of moderation, looked upon skin contact between male and female as nullifying wudu. The Hanbalis and Malikis add the condition of deriving pleasure from such contact, while the Hanafis regard only such contact to nullify the wudu whereby there is mutual touching of the sexual organs without penetration. It should be admitted, though, that this position of the Hanafi madhhab is not founded upon the verse that speaks of touching women, but rather upon the contention that such touching almost invariably leads to the emission of fluid, which in itself is factor that nullifies the wudu.
The idea behind following madhahib is not to turn people into prisoners of their madhahib, but rather to facilitate practicing upon the Qur’an and the Sunnah. No madhhab has ever purported to be a replacement for the Qur’an and the Sunnah, nor can it ever be. The facility that a madhhab provides is that of a systematic approach to the sources of our law, accompanied by the benefit of generation after generation of the best, purest and most capable minds. And even then, there has been recognition of the fact that situations do arise when the follower of a madhhab finds it difficult to practice contrary to the apparent meaning of a hadith that he has come across. Technically speaking, all that is required for a person faced by such a situation is that his practice be based upon the ijtihad of a valid mujtahid.
