As for what is obligatory upon them individually, this varies according to their capacities, needs, knowledge, and the commands addressed to them individually. Thus, someone unable to hear and understand certain scriptural texts is not required to acquire detailed knowledge that is not required of someone who has not heard them. A mufti, a hadith scholar, and a disputant have obligations that others do not.

As for his words:

“Is the preponderant judgment reached by someone exercising independent scholarly reasoning sufficient in this regard, or must certainty be attained?”

[Response to the Fourth Question]

The answer is:

The correct approach is to distinguish between cases. Although certain groups of speculative theologians claim that certainty is required in all questions concerning matters of belief—which they sometimes call questions of fundamentals—and that no evidence may be used in these questions unless it yields certainty, and may even require everyone to attain certainty in all of them, this unrestricted, sweeping claim is erroneous and contrary to the Book, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars.

Yet they themselves are among those furthest from meeting the requirements they impose. They frequently argue these questions using evidence they claim to be conclusive, whereas it actually consists of fallacies, not even rising to the level of probable evidence. Indeed, the same individual among them will often be certain of an argument’s validity in one context and certain of its invalidity in a context