:sl:
Most of the people I've come across usually tend to go to extremes in regards to this issue. There are on one side, a group of people that advise the laymen to make Ijtihad and abandon Taqleed trying to use some quotes from the four Imaams that indicate abandoning Taqleed of them and going back to the sources themselves. Those statements, in and of themselves are correct, but they're not intended for the laymen. They were intended for the students of the Imaams who maybe werent completely Mujtahid Mutlaq but were knowledgeable enough to decipher the evidences and extract jurisprudential rulings on their own and evaluate differences. In explaining this position, Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah says: “[Imam Ahmad] would order the layman to ask (yustafti) Ishaq, Abu ‘Ubaid, Abu Thawr, Abu Mus’ab, whilst he would forbid the scholars from his followers, such as Abu Dawud (the compiler of Sunan), ‘Uthman ibn Sa’id, Ibrahim al-Harbi, Abu Bakr al-Athram, Abu Zur’ah, Abu Hatim al-Sajistani, Muslim (the compiler of Sahih) and others, from making Taqleed of anyone from the scholars. He would say to them: You must refer to the sources, to the Book and the Sunnah.”
See al-Manhaj 373-376, al-Tahqiqat 643-645, Majmu’ah 20/116, 124-126, al-Mustadrak 2/241, 258, al-Furu’ 6/492, al-Insaf 11/147, I’lam 6/203-205, Mukhtasar al-Tahrir 103, Hal al-Muslim Mulzam… 14, Rawdhat al-Talibin 11/117, Usul al-Fiqh al-Islami 2/1166
So that is one extreme. The second extreme I've found amongst the people are those that make it completely mandatory (i.e.
wajib) for everyone to adhere to a madhab. I understand that it is perhaps a lot better for a layman to stick to a madhab, but I have yet to see evidence that it is
wajib. This is different from being la madhabi - that position is the extreme described above.
So personally, I've found the following beneficial. i) Avoiding arguments about these issues. ii) Finding a scholar that I trust, who has learned
fiqh traditionally via a madhab, and asking him my questions, because to me at the end of the day, that is me fulfilling the obligations Allaah has placed upon me ('Ask the people of knowledge if you do not know'). After all, the madhab of the layman is the madhab of the scholar he refers to. I've found this to be balance between the two extremes. I might also add, this position (of following a madhab not being
wajib, but asking a scholar that one trusts) is supported by many of the previous scholars such as Imam an-Nawawi, Ibn Qawan al-Shafi’i, Mulla ‘Ali al-Qari al-Hanafi, Ibn al-Humam al-Hanafi, and even some of the recent scholars such as Shaykh ‘Abdul-Fattah Abu Ghuddah (rahimullah) held this opinion.
My personal advise would be to not turn this issue into a gigantic argument, except against those that are la-madhabi ofcourse ;). Follow whichever madhab you want Insha'Allaah - there isn't a problem with that. I remember reading from a trustworthy Shaykh who studied with Shaykh Uthaymeen that once he attended a lecture of the Shaykh and in that lecture Shaykh Uthaymeen rahimullah advised and encouraged the listeners to choose and follow a madhab. Notice that this advice wasn't given to lay people like us, but actual students of knowledge - how much more important would it be for us to follow it?
Lastly, is just the issue of tolerance. A lot of us Alhamdullilah are tolerant of other madahib, but in the past and still today in places, people tend to go to extremes. The rivalry between the hanafis and the shafiees in the past is well known and one can give many examples of the type of fantacism that existed in the past. My point is basically, choose a madhab or a scholar that your trust
, don't become la madhabi, follow it, but be open and tolerant to those that choose to follow a different one. :thumbs_up