Madhab

[SixTen]

ive said it before and ill say it again i am all for the 4 imams of fiqh.. however would u reject a pious scholar for a ruling because hes of the wrong madhab? or he does somethign that conflicts with your madhab?

Someone who makes taqleed on a madhab - won't be in such a situation - as he would not be taking rulings from someone who is not of that madhab. I thought this was clear sis, if you read my first post on the thread.

 

[UmmSqueakster]

Nor can you claim its correct without having the knowledge of its background

Unless I've dedicated considerable amount of time to the study of fiqh, who am I to disagree with the mujtahid imams?

 

[IceQueen~]

Unless I've dedicated considerable amount of time to the study of fiqh, who am I to disagree with the mujtahid imams?

What I mean is for eg you agree with one of them but his opinion disagrees with another- without knowledge how do choose which is right for you?

 

[alcurad]

no such thing as an absolute mujtahid exists, nor has existed, if there were such, you would have to absolutely follow him in every ruling he makes, since he would be correct in all of his rulings. the only person with that kind of authority was the prophet.
and following a particular math-hab was good in the old days, when the opinions and rulings of the other scholars could not be shared easily, not now when all of them have been written down and could be found with the utmost ease. you cannot still follow a math hab based on your family's choice or whatnot, what adheres closes to the qur'an and sunnah is what is to be followed. and not all of the mathahib are equal for all rulings either, some have much stronger evidence for a ruling than others.

 

[IbnAbdulHakim]

im saying there is nothing wrong with following a madhab so long as you dont reject everything else even when what may be 'in a madhab' is not according to the Quran and Sunnah. And that is not DIY.

madhaabs strongly endorse ikhtilaaf, its those who oppose madhabs who seem to oppose ikhtilaaf.

yes definitely and i am not in any way putting down the scholars who gave their lives to studying the deen. nor am i rejecting the four imams of fiqh
i AM rejecting blindly following a ruling because its 'hanafi' or 'shafi' and there is not back up.. not from the imams themselves nor from the Quran and Sunnah..

i set to you the task of finding me just one opinion of the schools of thought which has ZILCH backing and is authentically from the madhab. because i know from my madhab that every opinion is firmly rooted in Quran and Sunnah. Alhamdulillaah.

Therefore taking the opinion of sheikh so and so, who takes from such and such madhaab without showing the daleel (and ive seen pages of daleel for the tiniest topics) is permissable inshaAllah and not to be rebuked or reprimanded. Of course you can check out the daleel... but you wouldnt really be able to understand whats authentic and whats not, therefore you'll taqleed somethign else to grasp that matter...



may Allah guide us ameen, plz make dua' for me ukhtee

 

[UmmSqueakster]

What I mean is for eg you agree with one of them but his opinion disagrees with another- without knowledge how do choose which is right for you?

This is what taqleed is about - we admit that we do not have the time, resources and energy to invest in the study that is needed in order to come to our own conclusions based on the Qur'an and Sunnah. Thus, we put our trust in the mujtahid imams and in the madhabs, because we know they've had that time, experience and knowledge. If they disagree with one another, then that's ikhtilaaf, which is an acceptable disagreement.

 

[Ibn Abi Ahmed]

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

 

[Re.TiReD]

^ Excellent post masha'Allah!

*been waiting ages for you to post here* :$

 

[Güven]

^lol me too , but it was worth it mashaAllah , JazakAllahu Khair !

 

[north_malaysian]

Zahiri was the official madhhab of the Andalucians right? It became extinct when the Muslims were chased away out of Spain.

In Malaysia, the official madhhab is Shafi'i. But in some rules in our religious enactments in various states some opinion from other madhhabs are used too..

About 10% of Penangite Muslims are Hanafis... thus we have Shafi'i and Hanafi mosques... but both Hanafis and Shafiis have no problems praying in each others mosques.

like Guven said, no madhhab is superior than the others....

Do u peeps realised that a great majority of Muslims living in the coastal areas and islands of the Indian Ocean (Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Maldives, Yemen, Somalia, Eastern Africa) are Shafi'is... I wonder why? Maybe becoz they love eating shrimps?:-[