8-Belief and Islam - Hakikat Kitabevi

that there was no mujtahid in his time.
“If a non-mujtahid Muslim learns a sahîh hadîth and
thereupon begins to feel uneasy about doing something in the
manner taught by the îmâm of his madhhab because the
manner taught by the imâm of his madhhab disagrees with the
hadîth, he has to search and find within the four madhhabs
another mujtahid whose ijtihad was based on that hadîth and do
that thing in accordance with the madhhab that that mujtahid
belonged to. Great scholar al-Imâm Yahyâ an-Nawawî
[rahimah-Allâhu ta’âlâ, d. Damascus, 676 A.H. (1277)]
explained this in detail in his Rawdat at-tâlibîn. For, it is not
permissible for those who have not reached the grade of ijtihâd
to draw rules from the Nass, that is, the Book and the Sunna.
Now some ignorant people claim that they have reached the
grade of absolute ijtihâd, that they can draw rules from the Nass
and that they no longer need to follow one of the four
madhhabs, and they abandon the madhhab they have followed
for years. They attempt to refute the madhhabs with their
unsound thoughts. They make such ignorant, stupid statements
as, ‘We will not follow the opinion of a religious man who was as
ignorant as we are.’ Deluded by Satan and provoked by the
nafs, they claim superiority. They cannot realize that by saying
so they reveal not their superiority but their stupidity and
ignominy. Among these, we see also those ignorant heretics
who say and write that everybody should read and derive rules
from tafsîr books and [the Sahîh of] al-Bukhârî. O my Muslim
brother! Completely avoid making friends with such idiots or
supposing that they are religious men! Hold fast to the
madhhab of your imâm! You are free to choose whichever you
like of the four madhhabs. But it is not permissible to collect the
facilities (rukhsas) of the madhhabs, that is, to unify the
madhhabs, which is called ‘talfîq’. [1]
“A Muslim who can read and understand hadîths well should
[1] ‘Talfîq’ means ‘performance of an act by unifying or mixing the easy
ways of madhhabs and in a way which is not compatible with any of
them’. After one carries out an act according to one of the four
madhhabs, that is, after his performance is sahîh (valid, suitable) in that
madhhab, his observing additionally as many as possible of the
conditions that are put in the other three madhhabs with the view that
the act shall be sahîh and acceptable also in these madhhabs is called
‘taqwâ’, which is very reward-deserving.
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