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Can a certain school of thought contradict the saying of the Imam of the school and have that contradiction be the adopted opinion among them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The efforts of the Ummah's scholars and the imams of the madhahib (schools of thought) are immense in refining these schools, clarifying their authentic from their spurious rulings, and their preponderant from their weaker opinions. The followers of each madhhab have exhausted their efforts in elaborating the madhhab of their imam, to the extent that it is inconceivable for them to unanimously err against him. An imam might have more than one opinion, and his followers would differ in preferring one over the other based on specific rules. The outcome is that the followers of each madhhab are the most knowledgeable about their imam's madhhab, and to them is the reference for understanding the madhhab and clarifying what the imam held. And even though the imams are not infallible, it is far-fetched that the scholars of a madhhab would unanimously attribute a saying to their imam when it is contrary to what he actually said.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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