UNDERSTANDING TAQLEED

Shaykh Murabtal Haaj¡¯s Fatwa on Following one of the Four Accepted Madhhabs

Translated by Hamza Yusuf Hanson

[Note: Hyperlinks within this document are links to footnotes at the bottom of the page]

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Amongst the most important replies that I have given, is my reply concerning the one who has deviated to the point where he censures the importance of studying the branches [furu'] of jurisprudence, and we seek refuge in Allah from the deviation of such a wandering deviant. Would that he simply had claimed independent reasoning (ijtihad) for himself only, and Allah is his reckoner, but abandoned the call of Muslims to leave that which is incumbent upon them. In our reply to such a one, we make mention what the scholars of the methodological bases of Islamic jurisprudence (usuli¡¯un) and the Imams of jurisprudence themselves have said about such a matter. As for my labelling him a deviant, it is only because he has desired to impose upon common people the precious rank of absolute independent reasoning [ijtihad], about which Muhammad an-Nabigha said,
And ijtihad in the land of the Moroccans,
The western phoenix has taken to flight with it.I say in reply, that the following of qualified scholarship (taqlid) is an obligation on anyone other than an absolute mujtahid. I shall make mention of all his prerequisites if Allah wills. [Sidi Abdullah Ould Hajj Ibrahim] has said in his Maraqi as-Sa¡¯ud:

¡°[taqlid] is necessary for other than the one who has achieved the rank of absolute ijtihad. Even if he is a limited [mujtahid] who is unable [to perform absolute ijtihad].¡±

Commenting on this line, [Sidi Abdullah] said in Nashru al-bunud,
¡°It means that taqlid is an obligation on anyone who is not an absolute mujtahid, even if he has achieved the limited rank of ijtihad muqayyad. . . [until he says], ¡®And ask the people of the reminder, if you yourselves do not know.¡¯¡±

By using the line of Muhammad an-Nabigha above, I am in no way claiming that all ijtihad has been severed in every land; how [could I say such a thing] when [Sidi Abdullah] says in Maraqi as-sa¡¯ud:

¡°The earth will never be void of a mujtahid scholar until its very foundations shake.¡±

He also said,
¡°[Regarding] the necessity of binding to a specific madhhab, the [scholars] have mentioned its obligation upon anyone falling short [of the conditions of ijtihad].¡±
He says in Nashru al-bunud,
¡°It means that it is incumbent for whoever falls short of achieving the rank of absolute ijtihad to follow a particular madhhab.¡±

Again, in Maraqi as-Sa¡¯ud, Sidi Abdullah says,
¡°The consensus today is on the four, and all have prohibited following [any] others.¡±

He says in Nashru al-bunud,
¡°This means that the consensus of the scholars today is on the four schools of thought, and I mean by the schools of Malik, Abu Hanifa, Shafi¡¯i and Ahmad. Indeed, all of the scholars have prohibited following any other school of an independent and absolute mujtahid since the eighth century when the school of Dawud adh-Dhahiri died out and until the 12th Century and all subsequent ones.¡±

In the chapter concerning inferential reasoning, from Maraqi as-sa¡¯ud, [Sidi Abdullah] says,
¡°As for the one who is not a mujtahid, then basing his actions on primary textual evidence [Qur¡¯an and hadith] is not permissible.¡±

He says in Nashru al-bunud,
¡°It means that it is prohibited for other than amujtahid to base his actions upon a direct text from either the Book or the Sunna even if its transmission was sound because of the sheer likelihood of there being other considerations such as abrogation, limitations, specificity to certain situations, and other such matters that none but the mujtahid fully comprehends with precision. Thus, nothing can save him from Allah the Exalted excepted following a mujtahid.

Imam al-Qarafi1says,
¡®And beware of doing what some students do when they reason directly from the hadith, and yet they don¡¯t know their soundness, let alone what has been mentioned [by the Imams] concerning the subtleties involved in them; by doing this, they went astray and led others astray. And whoever interprets a verse or hadith in a manner that deviates from its intended meaning without proof [dalil] is akafir.¡¯¡±
As for the conditions of the absolute and independent ijtihad, they are mentioned in the Maraqi as-sa¡¯udin the following line and what follows:..........
www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/mhfatwa.htm

UNDERSTANDING TAQLEED

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