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Ask
those who know
Question:
Some who are seeking knowledge are very hasty in giving rulings
in matters of halaal
and haraam,
and this is a common noticeable defect. What is your advice
to such people?
Response:
We have spoken on this issue long before, and we said that
Allaah the Wise has divided the Muslim community into two
types of people: the Ahl adh-Dhikr (the people of knowledge,
i.e. the scholars), and those that depend on the Ahl adh-Dhikr.
As Allaah says to the ordinary people:
{then
ask those who possess the Message (Ahl adh-Dhikr) if you do
not know} [Soorah
21, Aayah
7 and Soorah
6, Aayah
43].
The
Ahl adh-Dhikr, as we all know, are the Ahl al-Qur.aan and
the Ahl al-Hadeeth, those who know the authentic from the
unauthentic, the general from the specific, the abrogating
from the abrogated, and other such principles of fiqh
and hadeeth.
Hence, it is not allowed for a Muslim to begin giving fataawa
(plural of fatwa)
on the basis of some hadeeth,
simply because he came across it in some book, although he
does not know if it is saheeh (sound) according to the criteria
of the scholars of hadeeth.
On
the other hand, he knows that he is not sufficiently well-versed
in knowledge and competence in the Arabic language to explain
the meanings and ideas behind The Book (Qur.aan) and the Sunnah.
Therefore, anyone who has not decided to undertake acquiring
knowledge and persevere in it for many years, until the people
of knowledge testify that he can guide the people and direct
them towards good, it is not permissible for him to think
that he is an 'aalim (scholar) simply because he has read
some ahaadeeth (plural of hadeeth)
and memorised some aayaat (plural of aayah).
We
often hear of some of them who cannot even read the Qur.aan
properly, nor the ahaadeeth of the Prophet (sal-Allaahu
`alayhe wa sallam). This is why I advise the seekers of
knowledge to study two fundamentals:
a) the principles of fiqh,
and
b) the principles of hadeeth.
I
have mentioned before that it is not easy for one to deduce
the intended aim of the Lawgiver from any text unless he consults
as far as possible, all the texts of the Qur.aan and the Sunnah.
I will give a clear example: Allaah says:
{Forbidden
for you are dead meat, blood,...} [Soorah
5, Aayah
4].
If
a beginner who is studying the Qur.aan and has no knowledge
of hadeeth is asked regarding dead fish, he will immediately
bring this aayah as proof to clearly forbid it since it prohibits
dead meat. But were he to look into the ahaadeeth, he would
know that the Prophet (sal-Allaahu
`alayhe wa sallam) excepted two types of animals, fish
and locusts, from this prohibition, so he could rule accordingly.
Briefly, the student must learn these two fundamental branches
of learning to help to understand the Qur.aan and the Sunnah
as correctly as possible.
Shaykh
al-Albaanee
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