Shaykh al-Islām was asked to explain the following statement by Najm al-Dīn ibn Hamdān:

“Anyone who commits himself to a school of law is to be censured for departing from it without evidence, reliance on a scholarly authority, or some other excuse.”

He replied:

This may mean two things.

The first is that someone commits himself to a particular school of law, then acts contrary to it without following another scholar who has given him a fatwa, without reasoning from evidence that supports a contrary conclusion, and without a valid excuse under Islamic law permitting what he has done. Such a person is following his own desires, acting neither on independent legal reasoning nor on scholarly authority, and committing a prohibited act without a valid excuse under Islamic law. This is reprehensible. This is the meaning intended by Shaykh Najm al-Dīn.

Imam Ahmad and others explicitly stated that no one may believe something to be obligatory or forbidden, then regard it as neither obligatory nor forbidden merely to suit his own desires. For example, someone claims a right of pre-emption on the grounds of being a neighbour and believes that he is entitled to it; yet when that same right is claimed against him, he believes that no such right exists. Or, when inheriting as a brother alongside a grandfather, he believes that siblings share the inheritance with the grandfather; but when inheriting as a grandfather alongside a brother, he believes that the grandfather does not share with the siblings. Or he has an enemy who engages in certain practices over which scholars differ, such as drinking nabīdh of disputed permissibility and playing chess