← Back to Search
Fiqh
If I mostly follow Hanafi rulings, can I follow rules from other madhabs if there is more evidence?
The problem with this approach is how do you know if the evidence is stronger? In any field of life, you always go to an expert. So, for example, if you're having a heart transplant, you go to a cardiologist and you take their view. You don't, for example, read an article online that you might have found and then tell the cardiologist that this is strong evidence. No, nobody would do that. And it's the same for Islam, that it has to come through an expert, somebody who knows all the rulings, who's gone through the verses of the Quran, the hadith, knows how to interpret them, and then comes up with the ruling. So the way around it is that if you feel that you're not comfortable with one particular view, Allah says in the Quran, فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ ذِكْرِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ Ask somebody of knowledge, whoever that person may be, and go with their view. So, for example, in the Hanafi madhab, it's preferable to pray at the later Asr time. But if you had a specific need, you could pray at the earlier start time according to the majority of scholars. So there is flexibility, but it's not about how we interpret the evidence. It's always going back to experts in their particular field.