May a Muslim take another school’s position on one question?

A layman need not bind himself to one school — and this is named as the Hanbali position. Reporting the dispute among those who permit taqlid at all, al-Shawkani records that one group held a layman must adhere to a particular school, al-Kiya al-Harrasi choosing that, “and others said it does not bind him, which Ibn Burhan and al-Nawawi preferred, and it is the position of the Hanbalis” — the argument being that the Companions did not object to ordinary people following one man on some questions and another on others, and that the early generations followed whom they wished before the schools existed. Kashshaf al-Qina’ carries Ibn Taymiyya to the same effect: once God’s ruling and His Messenger’s becomes clear to a man in some matter he does not turn away from it and follows no one against it, “and it is also permitted to him to leave [his school] by a permissible taqlid — that is, by following a scholar qualified to exercise ijtihad who has given him a fatwa”. One who has acted on a sound taqlid is not to be objected to, because there is no objecting in questions open to ijtihad. The Hanbali Matalib Uli al-Nuha sets the limit: it is forbidden, by consensus, to judge or give fatwa by a view without weighing it first.

Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Taqlid", §17 "Taqlid al-madhahib" -- al-Shawkani on the disagreement over whether a layman must bind himself to one named school, and that not requiring it "is the position of the Hanbalis" (vol. 13 p. 164) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Taqlid", §§17-18 -- Ibn Taymiyya, by way of Kashshaf al-Qina', on leaving one's school "by a permissible taqlid", and that no objection is raised against one who acted on a sound taqlid (vol. 13 p. 164) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Taqlid", §16 "Ta'addud al-muftin wa-khtilafuhum 'ala al-muqallid" -- the layman may ask whom he wishes, but must weigh between them and may not make himself free to take and leave at will (vol. 13 p. 163) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — the Hanbali position named as such, and the further points taken from Hanbali works named in the passage.

Switching is not barred, but hunting dispensations is. Al-Nawawi is named among those who held that a layman is not bound to one particular school. The school’s own manual of legal theory, Jam’ al-Jawami’, states that the sounder view is that chasing the schools’ dispensations is barred, “because such chasing loosens the bond of legal obligation, since what he is then following is what his own soul desires”. Some went further and called it fisq; Nihayat al-Muhtaj holds the more evident view is otherwise; and it is said that the dispute concerns only the schools that were properly written down, outside which he is a wrongdoer for certain. The one case they do treat as settled is the composite: taking al-Shafi’i’s view on wiping part of the head and Malik’s on the purity of a dog, in a single prayer, produces a compound neither imam would accept.

Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Taqlid", §17 "Taqlid al-madhahib" -- al-Shawkani on the disagreement over whether a layman must bind himself to one named school, and that not requiring it "is the position of the Hanbalis" (vol. 13 p. 164) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Talfiq", §13 continued -- al-Durr al-Mukhtar on the composite ruling, the recorded disagreement among the usulis and the jurists over chasing dispensations, and the closing distinction between talfiq and tanaqqul/takhayyur (vol. 13 p. 294) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — each point taken from a passage naming the Shafi’i position, al-Nawawi, or the school’s own usul works.

Divided inside the school. ‘Ulaysh puts the question squarely — must a follower adhere to one school, may he leave it, may he follow the lesser of two scholars? — and answers that a follower moving from the well-known view of his school to an anomalous one that contains a dispensation, without hunting dispensations, is sound according to everyone who holds that following the more preponderant view is not obligatory. Against him, Ibn Abi Zayd holds there is no free choice for a follower at all: the preponderant view is the one that binds, and al-Ghazali and al-Mazari built on that, “and whoever takes another road in judging and giving fatwa has followed his desire and perished on the byways”. Where a follower learns of a dispute in a matter of his own and one view is preponderant by fame or by settled practice, acting on the preponderant view is what falls due, and no fatwa is given otherwise except for a crushing necessity. Al-Shatibi is quoted for the strict line: a follower or a mufti may not give fatwa except by the well-known view.

Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Shadhdh" -- 'Ulaysh on a Maliki follower leaving the well-known view for an anomalous one containing a dispensation, and Ibn Abi Zayd against him (vol. 25 p. 360) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Shadhdh" continued -- al-Shatibi that a follower or mufti may give fatwa only by the well-known view, and al-'Uqbani on a judge who rules by an anomalous one (vol. 25 p. 360) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Shadhdh", §4 -- the agreed rule that action, fatwa and judgment go by the well-known or preponderant view of the school, not the anomalous one (vol. 25 p. 359) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — each point taken from a passage naming a Maliki authority or the Maliki school as such.

The strictest on the composite, and the strictest on going back. al-Durr al-Mukhtar states that a composite ruling is void by consensus, and that going back on a taqlid after having acted on it is void by agreement — and that this is the position chosen in the school, “because taqlid, although permitted, has its permissibility conditioned on the absence of talfiq”, as Ibn ‘Abidin says in his gloss. Note what that does and does not reach: it is a rule about compounding two schools inside one act, and about reopening a matter already acted on — not about following another school on a separate question. The encyclopaedia sets the same limit around Ibn al-Hajib’s and al-Amidi’s much-quoted line that “whoever has acted in a question on one imam’s view may not act in it on another’s, by agreement”: it must be read, it says, as confined to the case where enough of the first act survives that combining it with the second produces a compound neither imam would accept.

Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Talfiq", §13 continued -- al-Durr al-Mukhtar on the composite ruling, the recorded disagreement among the usulis and the jurists over chasing dispensations, and the closing distinction between talfiq and tanaqqul/takhayyur (vol. 13 p. 294) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Talfiq", §13 "al-Talfiq bayn al-madhahib" -- the definition: taking the validity of one act from two schools together after each of them alone has judged it void (vol. 13 p. 293) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — taken from the passage reporting al-Durr al-Mukhtar and Ibn ‘Abidin as the Hanafi position.