The Prohibition of Making Qiyās (Analogisation) to Conform Islām to One’s Own Opinions
Imām Ibn al-Qayyim
The Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) said: ‘My ummah will be divided into seventy odd sects. The most troublesome of them will be a group who seek to combine this religion with their own opinions. In doing so, they will prohibit that which Allāh has permitted and permit that which Allāh has prohibited.’ [1]
Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: Such is qiyās (baseless analogies) and speaking concerning this dīn with assumptions and falsifications. Do you not see his saying in this ḥadīth: ‘they will prohibit that which Allāh has permitted and permit that which Allāh has prohibited’ and it is well known that what is permitted is only that which is permitted in the Book of Allāh and the Sunnah of His Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم), just as what is prohibited is only that which is prohibited in the Book of Allāh and the Sunnah of His Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Whomsoever is ignorant of this, and answers ignorantly to whoever poses a question to him in an attempt to erroneously analogise this religion with his own opinion that is outside of the confines of the Sunnah; such a person has indeed commensurated matters using his own opinion. He is misled and has chosen to mislead others. As for the one who returns the derivative branch [the question] back to its fundamental basis [the Qurʾān and the Sunnah], he has not vocalised his own opinion.”
Endnotes:
[1] This ḥadīth is weak. Imām Aḥmad and Yaḥyá ibn Maʿīn said: ‘This ḥadīth of Awf ibn Mālik has no foundation.’[‘Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wal Hikam: 2/1039] Its meaning is correct, as it comes in many other aḥādīth [Ibn Mājah: 3992, Ibn Abi ʿĀṣim in ‘al-Sunnah’: 63, al-Lālikāʾī in ‘Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah’: 149].
Source: Iʿlām Al-Muwaqqiʿīn: 97-98
Translated by: Riyāḍ Al-Kanadī