[The Ruling on a Person’s Error in Choosing the School of Thought]

Answer – and from Allah is success:
1 – All the adherents of the Islamic schools who are the Ummah of Muhammad (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) are agreed upon declaring astray everyone who opposes the truth in this matter. The followers of each school declare astray the followers of the schools that oppose it; most of them rule that the one who opposes them is a disbeliever, and they call that “the disbelief of misguidance,” or “the immorality of misinterpretation,” and some of them attach him to the ruling of the apostate.
After this consensus and agreement there appeared, in this century, a group who tried to bring the people of the differing schools closer together. They said: “All of them are correct, and it is not permissible to declare disbelief or immorality in this matter,” and they denounced what the people of the schools were upon. The people of this saying are from the scholars of Sana’a in the early period of Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din, among them ‘Abd al-Wasi‘ al-Wasa‘i. However, the adherents of the Islamic schools paid no attention to this new opinion and placed no reliance upon it, and consensus is among the strongest of proofs.
2 – The Noble Qur’an, in His saying, exalted is He: “Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating others with Him ˹in worship˺, but He forgives anything else of whoever He wills.” [al-Nisa:48] has indicated that Allah, exalted is He, does not forgive shirk at all – whether it issues deliberately or by way of error, whether from one whose investigation is complete or deficient, whether before the sending of the messengers or after, and so on.
This is while He, exalted is He, forgives what is less than shirk, of acts of disobedience, for whom He wills: He forgives what occurs of them by way of error and forgetfulness, what occurs by way of mistake, what occurred before the sending of the messengers, and what occurred by way of error in interpretation – due to the evidences that have come regarding that, among them His saying, exalted is He: “And there is no blame upon you for that in which you have erred.” [al-Ahzab:5]
And among them His saying, exalted is He: “And never would We punish until We sent a messenger.” [al-Isra:15] and His saying, exalted is He: “And Allah would not let a people stray after He has guided them until He makes clear to them what they should avoid.” [al-Tawbah:115]
3 – When a rational person examines and investigates, his intellect does not find rest and tranquility until he has arrived at the clear truth, and he is not convinced until its reality becomes uncovered to him and he ascertains its identity. Before arriving at that, the intellect is not convinced and does not accept what is not truth, does not respond to it, and is not pleased with it.
If he accepts other than the truth and inclines toward it, that is only due to caprice and the desire of the soul, not due to the conviction of the intellect and its realization of that toward which he has inclined.
If the matter is thus, then the falling of the legally responsible person into a false belief regarding the knowledge of Allah is not something for which he is excused.
Allah, exalted is He, has made intellects for His servants and has implanted them in them so that they might know their Lord by them and give thanks to Him: “And Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave you hearing, sight, and intellect so perhaps you would be thankful.” [al-Nahl:78] Indeed, Allah did not create the jinn and humankind and implant in them intellects except that they might worship Him, and worship of Allah does not truly occur until after knowing Him.
4 – And if the purpose and wisdom behind the creation of jinn and humankind – along with what is in them of hearing, sight, and intellects – is the knowledge of Allah, giving thanks to Him, and worshipping Him, then it is necessary, according to the requirement of Allah’s wisdom, knowledge, and justice, that there be for every legally responsible person of intellect, perception, and discernment that which will bring him to the sought-after goal: knowledge of Allah, of what He possesses of majesty, grandeur, and perfection, and of what He is exalted and far removed above, of deficiency, resemblance to originated things, likeness to them, and doing what is ugly, and so forth.
5 – What we have mentioned is supported and indicated by His saying, exalted is He: “And by the soul and ˹the One˺ Who fashioned it, then with ˹the knowledge of˺ right and wrong inspired it.” [ash-Shams:7–8] and His saying, exalted is He: “Have We not given them two eyes, a tongue, and two lips, and shown them the two ways ˹of right and wrong˺?” [al-Balad:8–10] and His saying, exalted is He, addressing those ignorant of Him: “Will you not then use your reason?” [al-Baqarah] and “Will you not then take heed?” [Yunus]. This indicates that Allah, exalted is He, has inspired every legally responsible person – by what He has implanted in him of the fitrah of the intellect – to distinguish between wickedness and piety, truth and falsehood, guidance and misguidance, and to know the path of guidance and the path of misguidance. It shows that it suffices the legally responsible person, for knowing the truth and treading its path and knowing falsehood and leaving it, to return to his intellect, for it will inevitably guide him to that. Indeed, he does not need great hardship; it suffices him to return to what is in his memory, and he will find therein that which guides him to truth and restrains him from falsehood.
6 – If there is someone who truly is not able to arrive, by his intellect and thought, at knowing truth from falsehood, then he is not charged with knowing the truth, for: “Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.” [al-Baqarah:286]
7 – The reason why error in knowing Allah and ignorance of Him is so great that its possessor deserves thereby the name of disbelief and is enlisted thereby among the ranks of the wicked, the immoral, and the wrongdoers, is due to several causes:
1- That Allah, exalted is He, deserves from His servants that they give thanks to Him with the utmost thanks for what He has granted them of tremendous blessings and poured upon them, beyond reckoning, of gifts and favors, and that every blessing that exists or will exist for any of the creatures of Allah is from Him alone, with no partner; that His favor upon them is immense and His beneficence towards them is abundant: “And He has lavished upon you His blessings, both apparent and hidden.” [Luqman:20] and “And He gave you from all you asked of Him. And if you should count the favor of Allah, you could not enumerate them.” [Ibrahim:34]
2- That Allah, exalted is He, along with His favor upon them and His beneficence towards them, has guided them to knowing Him by two great proofs:
a) By what He has implanted in the fitrahs of their intellects of the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and guidance and misguidance.
b) By what He has made them know of Himself and indicated to them concerning Himself upon the tongues of His messengers (May Allah bless them all) and by what He has sent down in His Books.
3- That Allah, exalted is He, has sent forth, in the horizons of the heavens and the earth, signs of His greatness and majesty, and signs of His knowledge and power, and so on; indeed, within every human being there are, of the signs of Allah the dazzling and the proofs of His overwhelming power and the traces of His knowledge and mercy, that which suffices any rational person and dispenses him from anything else of the signs.
One of the poets has said:
“So how wondrous it is that the Lord is disobeyed, or how the denier can deny Him,
when in everything there is a sign of His that points out that He is the One.”
And Allah, exalted is He, has said: “We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things?” [Fussilat:53]
4- That Allah, exalted is He, has warned His servants and given them notice of what there is, in ignorance of Him and disbelief in Him, of punishment and torment, and of what the one who is ignorant of Allah deserves in this world of calamity and severe retribution.
5- That the fitrahs of intellect among all humankind judge that the one who rebels against obedience to the righteous ruler in a land,
who is established over the interests of the servants, deserves punishment, and that his punishment is according to the measure of his rebellion and disobedience.
And that the greatest disobedience to the righteous ruler is that the disobedient one belittles this righteous authority, mocks his state, does not acknowledge it nor affirm it, claims that the rulership belongs to other than him and the authority to someone else, does not listen or obey anything of his commands or prohibitions, but rather opposes and disobeys him and strives with all his efforts to nullify his authority, to corrupt the servants, and to ruin the interests of the land. The laws of human beings, in ancient and modern times, punish such a person with the severest punishment – either death or life imprisonment; thus it is established in human intellects.
And I say: Were it not for caprice and inclining along with the desires and cravings of the soul, the adherents of the false schools would have perceived their right course, left their falsehood, inclined to the truth, and walked upon the straight path. But the whims and desires of the soul are what have driven people far from the clear truth, led them into the valleys of misguidance, and cast them into destruction.

Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3