Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barkatu,

I hope you are well and wanted to comment on a statement of yours:

“It is rather disquieting for a non-mujtahid that has nowhere near the Imams of old to come forward and say that Imam Nawawi, baihaqi, Hakim, and the majority of the greatest scholars of all time were wrong about something.”

This statement goes against the very foundations of usol. In any major book on usol one would find that there are a few areas where a scholar is forbidden to make ijtihad, and correcting the mistaken opinions held by great scholars is not one of them. A brief look at some of the greatest scholars in history proves this point.

‘Abdullah bin ‘Abbas is well known to have differed with ‘Abdullah bin Umar.

Although his student, Imam Malik differed with his teacher Rab’iah bin Abd al-Rahman on a number of issues.

Imam al-Shaf’i differed with his teacher, Imam Malik and wrote an entire chapter on it in al-Um calling it, “Where Shaf’i differed with Malik.

Abu al-Rahman bin Qasim, who studied with Malik for 20 years, differed with the Imam on a number of issues. So much so, that Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr wrote a book on the subject.

Imam Abi Zaid al-Qayrawani differed with a large number of issues held to be the opinion of Malik and his students.

Imam Jamal al-Din Ibn Malik, the teacher of al-Nawwawi, noted in is monumental work al-Tashil that, “Scholars will constantly succeed other scholars and correct the mistakes they made.”

Imam al-Nawawi in al-Majm’u differs with the prominent opinion help by his school and others that water warmed by the sun was makruh and harmed the body stating that “Medicine” proved that to be incorrect.

Ibn Khaldun noted in al-Muqadimah, that one of the reason to write a book was “To bring something new or correct the mistakes of earlier scholars.”

Imam al-Suyuti wrote “All praise be to Allah. When I made ijtihad I found that I differed with the Shafi’ madhab is 17 issues because the proofs used were weak.”

Badru al-Din al-Qarafi al-Maliki noted , when he differed with a mashur opinion held by the school regarding divorce, “We’ve been changing the mashur based on Maslaha since our schools inception.”

Your contention that no scholar has the right to come and differ with anyone of the great Imam’s is simply incorrect and a form of over exaggerating people’s status. Infallibility is granted to the Prophets exclusively and outside of a proven Ijm’a and an explicit Qiyas, the latter being debatable, we have a long history of great scholars differing with those who proceeded them, regardless if they were mujtahid mutlaq or not. In fact, the Ash’ari school went through no less than five phases, ultimately coming to some conclusions that differed with its founder, the great Imam and Scholar of Ahl Sunna, Abu Hassan al-‘Ashari. Thus we have the Baqilani Ash’ari’s, the Ghazzali ‘Ash’aris, it should be noted that the Andalusian Ash’aris, such as Tartusha considered al-Ghazzali as a rebel because of his differences with the school and ordered his books burned, and the Razian Ash’aris; the latter actual added 13 of the famous sifat 20 as noted by al-Suyuti in al-Kawakib al-Sat’i, and we find many of them differing over the issue of tafwid and tawil as noted by Ibn Hajar and al-Nawwai. In short, your statement is not only very dangerous, because it gives the right of prophethood to those who are not prophets and works to freeze the faith, but it undermines the very school you claim to follow since its opinions were developed over a number of years through debate and differing.

May Allah bless you and raise your status and if I’ve said anything that came across as rude or offensive please know that it was not my intention.

Allah bless you,
Suhaib

May I make a statement brothers and sisters? Imam Suhaib Webb politely suggested for you guys to move the conversation of the Salaf and all of this stuff to your private e-mails. I would kindly reiterate his statement. Have some respect for the Imam and his wishes. How can you talk about all of these Sheikhs and scholars of the past and aqida and fiqh and not respect a notable Imam of today. Do you think that if you were in the presence of these Sheikhs you argue over or any of there personal students that they would accept such behavior?
This began with Akhi Abu Layth, Why don’t you brothers continue the argument over there at his blog.
Imam, forgive me if I’m out of line, it seems to me that they didn’t listen when you said it the first time.

Just be honest.

"The bottom line is this: no qualified scholar has refuted the great Ash’ari, Maturidi scholars of the past, but qualified scholars have refuted Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al Qayyim and others. Scholars that are considered the bastions of knowledge even by modern salafis have refuted them." Hasan