Dismantling the Din: One Verse and Hadith at a Time
The Fallout from False Claims of Ijtihad
John Starling
May 25, 2026
For centuries now, the slogan “Qur’an and Sunnah” has carried immense emotional force among Muslims. Who could object to a call toward the Book of Allāh and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ? No believer doubts that they are the foundation of the religion, the source of guidance, and the ultimate criterion by which truth is known.
Yet beneath this noble slogan, another message has often been smuggled in.
Not merely a call to revelation, but a call to sever oneself from the accumulated scholarship of the Ummah. A call to abandon the jurists, dismiss the madhhabs, bypass the legal tradition, and imagine that the religion can be reconstructed directly from isolated verses and narrations by anyone who opens a book, reads a few aḥādīth, or memorizes scattered evidences.
In this framing, fiqh becomes an obstacle rather than a preservation of revelation. The madhhabs become barriers rather than carefully refined methods of understanding. The millennium-long labor of the scholars is reduced to “men’s opinions,” while the slogan “Qur’an and Sunnah” is invoked as though the jurists themselves were operating outside of both.
But this conception would have been unrecognizable to the great scholars of Islām.
The jurists never claimed that fiqh stood apart from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Rather, fiqh was the Ummah’s disciplined engagement with revelation. It was the cumulative effort to understand divine speech through language, transmission, legal principles, analogy, consensus, contextualization, and rigorous methodological inquiry.
The slogan “Qur’an and Sunnah” becomes dangerous when stripped from this inherited framework. Detached from the sciences that govern interpretation, revelation is no longer approached through coherent methodology, but through fragments, impressions, isolated proofs, and personal preference. In such a world, every reader becomes his own mujtahid, every opinion claims textual backing, and the structure of the religion slowly begins to collapse.
It was precisely this phenomenon that alarmed the great Ḥanbalī scholar Shaykh Muḥammad al-Saffārīnī (1188 AH) when he was asked about a man who called people away from the books of fiqh under the claim that only the books of hadith and tafsīr should be followed. His answer was not mild. Nor did he treat the issue as a simple scholarly disagreement.
What follows is part of that response.
Question:
“What do the scholars of the Muslims and the rightly guided authorities say regarding a man who studied fiqh according to the madhhab of his imam, then later claimed that it is impermissible to act upon any of the books of fiqh because they are all later developments (muḥdathāt), and that what is obligatory is to act only upon the books of hadith and tafsīr, abandoning everything else besides them?
Should any attention be given to such speech?
And does this claim amount to a claim of ijtihād or not?
If it does, then what are the consequences of such a claim from one unqualified for that rank?
And what are the conditions required for ijtihād?
What is the duty of the common person if he abandons the position of his imam and follows this man instead, based on the latter’s claim that his own view is the very hadith of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, whereas fiqh is not?
Provide us with an answer.”
Shaykh Muḥammad al-Saffārīnī (1188 H), may Allāh preserve him, responded:
"All praise belongs to Allāh alone, and may Allāh send prayers upon His chosen one and Prophet.
Know that this question contains several issues.
The first:
This claimant alleges that it is impermissible to act upon anything found in the books of fiqh.
This is the intent of the questioner.
And this is an immense and grievous calamity, and a monstrous tribulation, for it stands in opposition to the consensus of the Ummah and contradicts all of the Imāms.
Indeed, the leading Imāms and great scholars, from the religion of Islam, have not and will never cease to act upon the well-known books of fiqh, transmitting them from generation to generation, successor after predecessor.
So this claimant’s claim amounts to an indictment of the entire Ummah, from the era of the Tābiʿīn down to our very own time.
The scholars have continuously devoted themselves to the service of fiqh: gathering it, organizing it, elaborating its details, and arranging it into subject matter. And in doing so, they were correct, rightly guided, and deserving of reward.
The second:
His claim that what is obligatory is to act upon hadith and tafsīr while abandoning everything besides them is a statement containing both truth and falsehood.
As for the falsehood, it lies in his saying, ‘abandoning everything besides them,’ for the sources of the Sacred Law are the Qur’an, the Sunnah, ijmāʿ, qiyās, and istiṣḥāb al-nafi al-aṣlī, as is well known from the Imāms and clearly explained in the books of uṣūl.
As for the truth, then there is no doubt that one must act in accordance with the Qur’an and the Sunnah. But are the books of fiqh anything other than the distilled essence and fruit of the Qur’an and Sunnah?
They contain the legal rulings extracted from their detailed and general evidences, along with what has been analogically derived from them.
And the source of all of this is the Lord of the worlds. The Qur’an is His speech, the Sunnah is its clarification, and ijmāʿ itself points back to the revealed texts. The teacher of all of this is the Messenger ﷺ, for he is the one who conveys from Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, exalted in His rank and supreme in His authority.
The third:
His statement: ‘Does this amount to a claim of ijtihād?’
The answer is yes. But it is an ijtihād directed toward dismantling the Sharīʿah and adopting a course contrary to the path of the Muslims.
A man like this in our age, claiming ijtihad, resembles those who claimed prophethood falsely, such as Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb, al-ʿAnsī, Sajjāḥ, and others from among the imposters and deceivers.
Whoever truly aspires to the rank of ijtihād must abandon comfort and luxury, leave behind pillows and cradles, forsake women and children, and traverse the lands in pursuit of the vast compilations of the Sunnah transmitted from the righteous predecessors. He must master their classifications and intricate details, learn how legal rulings are extracted from them, and beyond that.
So once you have understood what we have mentioned, it becomes clear to you that no attention should be given to his words.
Radiant light is not left so that you can descend into his darkness.
As for his statement, ‘What follows from such a claim?’
We say: it has become evident that this man is misguided and misleading due to his ignorance of the methods and principles of ijtihād, to the extent that he has altogether disregarded ijmāʿ and qiyās, and this is the furthest extent of bankruptcy.
As for the one who claims ijtihād for himself, then proof and evidence must be demanded from him. If he cannot produce them, then disciplinary punishment and deterrence are warranted for him and those like him, especially because such statements amount to an attack upon the Salaf of this Ummah and its leading Imāms, implicit in his claim that acting upon the books of fiqh is impermissible.
The fourth:
The question of the inquirer regarding the conditions of ijtihād.
Know that the mujtahids are divided into four categories: the unrestricted mujtahid (mujtahid muṭlaq), the mujtahid within a particular field, and the mujtahid in a single issue or set of issues.
The speech of this ignoramus pretender clearly amounts to a claim of unrestricted ijtihād.
Ibn Ḥamdān, along with others from the Imāms of our madhhab, said:
‘The unrestricted mujtahid is one who independently derives the legal rulings of the Sharīʿah from its evidences, both general and specific, including the rulings pertaining to newly arising matters. This rank is not attained merely through possessing an abundance of fiqh.
Rather, such a person must possess deep knowledge of the Qur’an and Sunnah and all that relates to legal rulings within them: their literal and figurative meanings, commands and prohibitions, concise and detailed expressions, clear and ambiguous passages, general and specific texts, unrestricted and restricted expressions, abrogating and abrogated rulings, and the principles and implications derived from them.
Likewise, he must distinguish the authentic Sunnah from the weak, the mutawātir from the āḥād narrations, the mursal from the musnad, and the connected reports from the disconnected.
He must also know the areas of consensus and disagreement among the jurists in every age and land regarding legal rulings, along with their evidences, the principles of qiyās and its conditions, and everything connected to that. And mastery of the Arabic language as spoken throughout the Ḥijāz, al-Shām, Yemen, Iraq, and the surrounding lands of the Arabs, along with other matters besides that.'
I (al-Saffarini) say: whoever aspires to ijtihād in these times, or his nafs has told him to aspire to it, has indeed sought the impossible and his nafs has spoken to him with falsehood and misguidance. And Allāh alone is the Possessor of grace.
The fifth:
What is required of the common person is that he pay no attention to the likes of this corrupter’s words. Rather, he must turn away from him and his speech entirely and follow one of the four recognized Imāms who devoted their lives to extracting legal rulings and became the relied upon authorities for all people.
No one from this Ummah has the right to depart from their path. This is a matter over which there is no dispute among any trustworthy scholar.
It is incumbent upon every Imām and faqīh to warn people away from the likes of this misguided and misleading fool.
The Ummah codified the madhhabs with the finest precision, arranged them in the most excellent manner, and clarified them with the utmost care.
And what does this ignorant man even know of the Qur’an and the Sunnah? Imām Aḥmad, may Allāh be pleased with him, said: ‘There are 600,000 authentic hadiths from the Messenger of Allah.’ And Imām Ibn al-Jawzī said: "Meaning, their chains and routes of transmission.’
Imām Aḥmad, may Allāh be pleased with him, answered 60,000 legal questions with the phrases “ḥaddathanā” and “akhbaranā,” and al-Ṣarṣarī alluded to this in his verse:
‘He answered sixty thousand legal cases
With “ḥaddathanā” not from transmitter scrolls’
He encompassed the sunnah himself, as al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar stated. That is not claimed of anyone else, those whose knowledge consists merely of scattered fragments they have memorized, as the noble scholar al-Suyūṭī alluded to in al-Muntahāt.
Regardless the case, following other than the four is foolishness and misguidance and Allah knows best." (End of answer)
And his teacher, al-Shihāb al-Mannīnī, wrote upon this response:
“All praise belongs to Allāh. This answer proceeds upon the path of truth and the course of correctness. It is further supported by what al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām said in response to a question presented to him: As for relying upon the reliable and trusted books of fiqh, the scholars of this age have unanimously agreed upon the permissibility of relying upon and referring back to them, because confidence in them has been established just as confidence is established through transmitted narrations.
For this reason, people have relied upon the well-known books of grammar, language, medicine, and the other sciences, once distortion and corruption within them became remote and unlikely.
Whoever believes that the people have collectively agreed upon error in this matter is himself more deserving of error than they are.
Were reliance upon such works impermissible, many of the interests connected to them would collapse altogether.
Indeed, the Sacred Law itself has referred people back to physicians, even though their books were originally transmitted from non-Muslims. Yet once the possibility of distortion became remote, reliance upon them became acceptable.
Likewise, how much of the Arabic language has been established through reliance upon the poetry of the Arabs due to the remoteness of distortion within it?
What comes to mind is that the statement of this individual resembles the principles of the Shīʿah sects who prohibit deriving the branches of the Sharīʿah from anyone besides an infallible authority. They falsely claim infallibility for their own leaders and do not permit taqlīd of any Imām besides them.
And Allāh knows best.’”
Conclusion:
The issue was never whether Muslims should follow the Qur’an and Sunnah.
The issue is whether the Qur’an and Sunnah can be approached without the intellectual inheritance of the Ummah that preserved, transmitted, organized, explained, and derived their rulings.
The irony is that those who dismiss the fiqh of the madhhabs in the name of revelation are often benefiting from their fiqh at every step without realizing it. The organization of prayers, purification, fasting, zakāh, pilgrimage, contracts, marriage, inheritance, and judicial procedure, did not descend as indexed legal manuals.
They were painstakingly extracted, refined, debated, systematized, and transmitted through centuries of juristic labor.
Even the categories through which people argue today, ṣaḥīḥ and ḍaʿīf, mutawātir and āḥād, ʿāmm and khāṣṣ, muṭlaq and muqayyad, nāsikh and mansūkh, are themselves inherited scholarly constructions. The very language used to reject the madhhabs was produced by the civilization of the madhhabs.
This is why the great scholars spoke so forcefully against those who casually claimed ijtihād while scorning the legal tradition. Such people were not seen as revivers of the dīn, but as individuals severed from the intellectual architecture that made meaningful engagement with revelation possible in the first place.
The madhhabs were never rivals to the Qur’an and Sunnah. They were among the greatest instruments for preserving their understanding.
But when the slogan “Qur’an and Sunnah” is wielded beneath false claims of ijtihād, severed from the inherited scholarship of the Ummah and the disciplines that govern interpretation, the religion begins to flatten, fragment, and come apart.
And it is not dismantled all at once.
It is dismantled slowly, one verse and one hadith at a time.