Understanding Taqlid by Mufti Muhammad Sajaad

1: The Basic Argument for Taqlīd
has true scholars leading the unlearned. This amazing tradition
consists of identifying the teachers from whom one gained his
or her knowledge and secondly, their authorisation of him or her
as a competent teacher of the science. Thus, in this manner, the
scholar could rightfully claim that the knowledge he was providing
to the people had the authorisation of a chain of transmission that
eventually went back to the Messenger of Allah a. It was this
age-long blessed process, the modernist Salafi movement sought
to undermine. They eventually reduced the importance of this
powerful means of protecting the Deen by arguing all Muslims are
equal when it comes to approaching the texts of the Holy Qur’an
and Hadith.
the subjects and skills to master
in order to become a mujtahid (Expert Scholar)
Scholars are agreed that it is not permitted for a person to derive
a single ruling from the Holy Qur’an and Sunna, without first
learning the key Islamic Sciences, such as:
1. Arabic Grammar (Nahw and Sarf)
2. The science of Arabic Rhetoric (‘Ilm a-balagha)
3. The sciences of Exegesis (Tafsir)
4. The science of Ḥadīth (‘Ulum al-Ḥadīth)
5. The knowledge of jurisprudential principles (Usul al-Fiqh)
Only after having studied these basic subjects, nurturing and
developing them to the advanced degree of a specialist, could and
would one immerse oneself in the massive corpus of Qur’anic
and Hadithic texts. This obvious fact should suffice in making a
person realise any movement that calls its unlearned followers to
go directly to the Holy Qur’an and Hadith, has nothing to do with
Islam and is in fact a means of misguidance.
Ninety-five percent of those who fervently hold to the idea of
going directly to the Qur’an and Sunna, do not even know, let
alone have mastered, the Arabic language. It would be rash and
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