Hakikat Kitabevi Publications No: 10 answer to an enemy of islam

Radd al-muhtâr on the authority of the book Hazânat ar-
riwâyât: “Those scholars who were able to draw meanings from
âyats and hadîths were ahl ad-dirâya. They were in the grade of
ijtihâd. It was permissible for them to act upon a marjuh (not
preferred) report or a da’îf of which the transmitters were not
trusted in narration coming from their own imâm al-madhhab,
even though it might not agree with the madhhab they belonged
to. When there was difficulty in doing something, they could issue
a fatwâ upon it for ordinary Muslims, too.” As it is seen, it is
always permissible for a mujtahid fi ’l-madhhab to follow an
ijtihâd showing an easy way in his madhhab which is permissible
for an ordinary Muslim only when there is difficulty.
[1]
Ibn ’Âbidîn
writes again in the preface, “The ordinary Muslims do not have a
madhhab and their madhhab is their muftî’s madhhab. The
commentary on 
Tahrîr of Ibn Humâm writes in the explanation of
this statement that following a madhahb is for a person who
knows and understands what a madhhab is or who has understood
the fatwâs of the imâms of a madhhab by reading a book of this
madhhab, and that the claim of a person who is not so to be a
Hanafî or a Shâfi’î does not show that he belongs to either
madhhab. As it is understood from this, an ordinary person’s
saying that he has changed his madhhab has no value; upon asking
a muftî of another madhhab he will have changed his madhhab.
Ibn Humâm writes in his book 
Fat’h al-qadîr, “A muftî has to be
a mujtahid. A scholar who is not a mujtahid is called “nâqil”
(transmitter), but not a “muftî.” Those muftîs who are not
mujtahids are muqallids, too. These, as well as ordinary Muslims,
cannot draw correct meanings from hadîths. They, therefore, have
to adapt themselves to what mujtahids understood, that is, they
have to follow them. The imâms did not disagree with one another
in this respect.”
As for cupping when one is fasting, certainly it does not break
a Hanafî’s fast. If he eats something thinking that his fast has been
broken, qadâ’ and kaffâra will be compulsory. A person who is as
ignorant as not to know that he has not broken his fast after
cupping is an ordinary person. If a Hanbalî muftî says that it
breaks his fast, or if he hears a hadîth stating that it does and
cannot explain it away, the unbrokenness of his fast becomes
uncertain and, when he eats afterwards, the kaffâra will not be
compulsory, for the madhhab of an ordinary Muslim is the
– 60 –
[1] See the chapter on “ghusl” in the book