or a painful punishment afflict them.” He also says:

“Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you.’”

Allah has made obedience to the Messenger obligatory upon everyone in nearly forty places in the Quran. Obedience to him is obedience to Allah: it is worshipping Allah alone, without partner. That is Allah’s religion—Islam. Whoever Allah has commanded people to obey—whether a scholar, ruler, parent or husband—is to be obeyed because obeying him constitutes obedience to Allah. If, however, he commands something contrary to obedience to Allah, he must not be obeyed.

A parent or husband may command something permissible and thus be obeyed. The same applies to a ruler when he gives an order to a scholar who knows that it constitutes disobedience to Allah, and to a scholar when he gives someone a ruling that the questioner does not know to be contrary to Allah’s command: the person obeying them is not disobeying Allah. But if he knows that it is contrary to Allah’s command, then obeying them in that matter constitutes disobedience to Allah.

For this reason, several scholars have reported a consensus that a scholar may not follow another scholar’s opinion once he has exercised independent judgment, examined the evidence, and clearly recognized the truth brought by the Messenger. In that case, he may not follow someone whose view contradicts it; there is no disagreement about this. But may he follow another scholar’s opinion when he is himself capable of examining the evidence?

There are two views on this. The position of al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad and others is that he may not. Permission to do so has been attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan. This is a well-known issue, and some have also attributed this view to Ahmad.