Legal Status Of Following A Madhab pdf download

Legal Status of Following A Madhab

LEGAL STATUS OF FOLLOWING A MADHAB

Book ‘s prologue

Much has been written on the subject of “Taqleed and Ijtihad” – or following a

Madhab and legal discretion. In fact, I was adamant that I could add nothing further to this vast subject. However, the article arose quite coincidentally.

In 1963, the respected brother Mahirul Qadri, the editor of Faran the monthly journal, asked me to pen an article on the issue of Taqleed due to some immediate and pressing concerns.

Like my dear respected father, Mufti Shafi, I do not like to engage in controversy.

 However, I wrote a brief tract on the subject with the view that the issues are made clear so that those who endeavor to precipitate strife amongst Muslims by calling each other infidels and polytheists should be asked to re-evaluate their conclusions.

 The article was published in ‘Faran’ in May 1963 and was received with extra ordinary popularity, it became published in several magazines throughout the Asian subcontinent, infact it was published as a separate book in India.

Surprisingly, even though the approach of my article was far from being polemical those who are hostile to following Imams of Ijtihad, criticized the work.

One of those criticisms was written by Maulana Muhammed Ismail Salfi and was published in thirteen issues of Al-I’tisaam.

This criticism later became the basis for two of his books namely, The movement for independence of thought and The Revivalists Efforts of Shah Wulliyullah.

The second criticism was published in The Exposition: An answer to Taqleed. This was written by a person who openly condemned the Imams of Ijtihad as fabricators of Islamic Law; their followers as infidels and polytheists and denounced Islamic jurisprudence as a concoction. The third criticism was written in Hyderabad, India and published in a local monthly.

But since my intentions were not to get tangled into a bitter or lengthy debate. I did not see it fit to prolong the discussion and consequently withdrew from writing on the issue for thirteen years.

This article was well received, many desired that it should be published as a separate book as was done in India.

As a result I decided to revise certain areas so that critics could be answered and doubts removed.

Academic contentions are also examined. As I am not in favor of debating. I have included the replies to such contentions at various places as part of the overall response.

To reiterate the purpose of this book is not to create an atmosphere of disputation but to clarify the position taken by the majority of Muslims for the best part of thirteen centuries on Taqleed – which is to follow the Imams of Ijtihad.

By avoiding the extremes, the goal is to show the balanced position which the majority of the scholars from the Ahle Sunnah wal Jama’ah have adopted.

Therefore, this tract should be read with a view to study the scholastic evidence of the issue, rather than to dispute upon the issue void of knowledge. There is a great deal of propaganda against Taqleed. I hope that this treatise helps to make clear the issue of Taqleed to the doubtful.

“My reconciliation is with Allah alone. It is Him that I trust and to Him that I turn.”  Mohammed Taqi Uthmani