The Ruling on the “Practitioners of Hadith” (‘Amil bi-l-Hadith)

Question

Are the “practitioners of hadith” (‘amil bi-l-hadith) upon the truth or not?

Answer

One who possesses the competence for ijtihad has the right to keep all the hadiths before him and derive (istinbat) rulings from them. But in this age such competence is absent from the entire world, as experience has been showing for centuries; hence there is no alternative but taqlid.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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