Surely one of the most pertinent quotes from the salaf for our age, only matched by that from Ibn Wahb, “Every man of hadith who has no Imam in fiqh is astray. If Allah had not rescued us by Malik and al-Layth we would have gone astray.”
“Hadith are misleading except to people who know fiqh,” Ibn ‘Uyaynah
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Abdassamad Clarke is from Ulster and was formally educated at Edinburgh University in Mathematics and Physics. He accepted Islam at the hands of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi in 1973, and, at his suggestion, studied Arabic and tajwid and other Islamic sciences in Cairo for a period. In the 80s he was secretary to the imam of the Dublin Mosque, and in the early 90s one of the imams khatib of the Norwich Mosque, and again from 2002-2016. He has translated, edited and typeset a number of classical texts. He currently resides with his wife in Denmark and occasionally teaches there. 14 May, 2023 0:03 View more posts
How can those who claim to have knowledge & know these kinds of statements mislead the masses to thinking that it is wrong to follow an Imam of one of the 4 Mathaabs? No, one should not follow blindly, but should stick closely to one of them. And Allah knows best.
Qadi Iyad, may Allah be merciful to him, also took the position in the Tartib al-Madarik (portions of which are published here: http://www.bogvaerker.dk/wordpress/?s=qadi+%27iyad) that it is obligatory on the Muslims to ascertain who was the most knowledgeable of the mujtahid imams and to follow him, not just one who was an acceptable imam (as they all were). He stated unequivocally that it was Imam Malik, which proposition he set about proving with a series of arguments, the foremost of which is from the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. See that page to get an idea of his argument.
As-salamu alaikum,
Abdassamad