What is the meaning of the Four Schools of Thought, and is every Muslim obliged to belong to one of them, and is it permissible to take from each school whatever opinions one finds comfortable?

Islamic jurisprudence has gone through stages, including the emergence of jurisprudential schools of thought (madhahib) in the early second century AH. Great jurists appeared and established their schools, among which the four famous madhahib are: the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools. These madhahib are methodologies for understanding Sharia, interpreting its texts, and deriving rulings from its sources. It is not obligatory to adhere to a specific madhhab among them. Rather, what is obligatory is adherence to the Qur'an and Sunnah. Therefore, it is impermissible to deviate from established evidence for the statement of anyone, and relying on opinions that contradict the evidence under the pretext of facilitation is a great danger.