45 - IJTIHAD: Today, many of the symptoms of the end of the world have appeared and spread far and wide. One of these symptoms is that the number of the ignorant will increase and men of knowledge will decrease. The ignorant will be authorities in the religion and lead everybody astray. These symptoms are written in detail in the hadiths written in Mukhtasar at-tazkirat al-Qurtubi and in al-Birghiwi's Wasiyyat-nama. Then, Muslims should be vigilant. They should not believe in every word. They should not believe those who do not mention the Ahl as-Sunnat scholars and their books but extract meanings from ayats and hadiths according to their own minds in their khutba, books and papers. The non-madhhabite people are either heretics or unbelievers, both of whom have always disguised themselves as religious men and deceived Muslims and led them astray. We should search for the meanings which the Ahl as-Sunnat scholars have given to the ayats and hadiths about which those heretical people talk and should learn the truth of the matter. For doing this, we should read the dependable 'ilm al-hal books. The Ahl as-Sunnat scholars have studied all the ayats and hadiths minutely, found out their true meanings by splitting hairs and written them down in books. Now the ignorant of religion who know little Arabic assume themselves to be mujtahids. By saying, "We have graduated from the university; we have received diploma," they despise Islamic scholars. Whereas, if a teaching which the mujtahids of a period have reported as ijma', that is, unanimously, is one of the fundamentals of the religion, that is, if it has spread everywhere so that even the ignorant know it, it is fard both to believe and to follow it. He who does not believe such an ijma' becomes an unbeliever. He who believes but does not follow it becomes a fasiq. If a unanimously reported teaching is not one of the fundamentals of the religion, he who disbelieves it does not become an unbeliever. He becomes a heretic, a man of bidat. He who does not follow it becomes a fasiq, a sinner.

 Ibn Malak wrote on ijma' in his book Usul al-fiqh, "If the mujtahids of a certain era did not agree on how an action should be done and explained it differently, the scholars succeeding them should follow the words of one of them and is not permissible for them to say differently. All scholars have said unanimously that it must be so and thus ijma' has resulted." There is not a mujtahid in any part of the world today. 'Mujtahid' means 'an Islamic scholar who has attained to the grade of ijtihad'. Not from ourselves do we say that there is no mujtahid on the earth today; all scholars have been declaring this, including Hadrat Shah Wali-Allah ad-Dahlawi, of whom Mawdudi tries to make a false witness. For example, Ibn 'Abidin, while commenting on the statement, "To call very loud for the muazzins will spoil their salat," in Durr al-mukhtar, wrote: "After 400 years following Rasulullah's ('alaihi 's-salam) death there has come no great scholar to do qiyas, and no mutlaq mujtahid who could derive rules by comparing one affair to another came." As declared in the Hadith, profound scholars who would attain to the grade of ijtihad would come every hundred years, but these have been the mujtahids within a madhhab, who have not undertaken the task of doing qiyas, that is, performing new ijtihad, but have tried to renovate the ijtihad of the leader of the madhhab to which they have belonged and to lead people to the right course, seeing that there was no need for new ijtihad and being interested in emphasizing the Ahl as-Sunnat knowledge. A Muslim who is not a mujtahid is called a muqallid (follower). Today, we all the Muslims on the earth are muqallids. No matter how much learned a muqallid is, he cannot do ijtihad over a matter disagreeing with what the mujtahids have communicated before; this is understood from the unanimity quoted from Ibn Malak above. The hadith, "My umma will not agree on deviation," indicates that this unanimity of scholars is a means of salvation and is correct.