. As a result they are governed by selfishness, corrupt motives, lust, insincerity, mischief, strife, anarchy, and opposition to the consensus of the rightly-guided scholars. This inevitably leads to the subjection of the Din (religion) to human desires. The hadiths on fitan [strife, trials, and tribulations] have forewarned us of the rise of these corrupt traits in man, and the scholars of this Din have been aware of this problem. The absence of taqlid shakhsi (or 'following one particular person in the affairs of Islamic law) will cause great harm and corruption in the Din. One of the destructive evils which will raise its ugly head in the absence of taqlid shakhsi is the appearance of self-appointed mujtahids. Some people will consider themselves to be capable of inferring religious rulings, and embark on the process of juristic [shar'i] analogical reasoning [qiyas]. They will consider themselves to be of equal or greater rank than the illustrious mujtahids of the early ages of Islam.
For example, the previous mujtahids have reliably stated that many laws are based on particular causes [mu'allal] and not definite causes. Citing this, some modernists might claim that even the command of wudu'for prayer is based on a particular cause [mu'allal]. According to them, this command could have been for the early Arabs, whose occupation of tending animals exposed them constantly to impurities, which could have called for ritual purification in the form of wudu'. They might claim, on this basis, that since people of the present time live in conditions of greater hygiene, wudu'is no longer necessary for prayer!
[From the opening chaprers of Taqlid and Ijtihad by Shaykh Masihullah Jalalabadi]
