In the name of Allāh, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. All praise is due to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds. I send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muḥammad, and upon his family and companions, all together. To proceed: Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (may Allāh have mercy on him) says: [The sixth principle: Refuting the doubt instilled by Satan to abandon the Qurʾān and sunnah and follow diverse and differing opinions and whims, which is: that the Qurʾān and sunnah are only understood by the absolute mujtahid, and the absolute mujtahid is described with such and such attributes that may not be fully found in Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. If a person is not like that, then he must turn away from them as a definite obligation without any doubt or confusion, and whoever seeks guidance from them is either a heretic or insane due to the difficulty of understanding them. Glory be to Allāh and praise be to Him! How many ways has Allāh, the Exalted, clarified through legislation and decree, creation and command, to refute this cursed doubt from various angles that have reached the level of general necessities, ﴿But most of the people do not know﴾ (Ghāfir, 57), ﴿Indeed, the word has come into effect upon most of them, so they do not believe. * Indeed, We have put shackles on their necks, and they are to their chins, so they are with heads kept aloft. * And We have put before them a barrier and behind them a barrier and covered them, so they do not see. * And it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them—they will not believe. * You can only warn one who follows the reminder and fears the Most Merciful unseen. So give him good tidings of forgiveness and noble reward﴾ (Yā Sīn, 7-11). The end, and all praise is due to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds, and may Allāh send prayers upon our master Muḥammad, and upon his family and companions, and grant much peace until the Day of Judgment]. This is the end of the six principles from this blessed treatise which the Shaykh (may Allāh have mercy on him) named [Six Great Beneficial Principles]. He (may Allāh have mercy on him) says: [The sixth principle: Refuting the doubt instilled by Satan to abandon the Qurʾān and sunnah and follow diverse and differing opinions and whims, and this doubt is that the Qurʾān and sunnah are only understood by the absolute mujtahid, and the absolute mujtahid is described with such and such attributes that may not be fully found in Abū Bakr and ʿUmar]. This sixth and final principle is an invitation from the Shaykh (may Allāh have mercy on him) to ponder the Book of Allāh, and to benefit from the sunnah of the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam), and for a person to consider these two great principles which guarantee salvation in this world and the hereafter for those who adhere to them; for turning to the Book and sunnah is the path of the righteous predecessors, and it is their way. This doubt has prevented many people from turning to the Book and sunnah, and the Shaykh (may Allāh have mercy on him) wants to refute this doubt, which is: that not everyone understands the Book and sunnah, only the absolute mujtahid understands them or derives from them. He (may Allāh have mercy on him) said: [And the absolute mujtahid is described with such and such] as a reference to the attributes they mentioned extensively in the books of uṣūl al-fiqh by saying such and such. Then he (may Allāh have mercy on him) said about these conditions: [Attributes that may not be fully found in Abū Bakr and ʿUmar], and in reality, they are not found in Abū Bakr and ʿUmar; because they stipulate that the mujtahid must be fully aware of the sunnah of the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam), missing nothing from it, and this is not in Abū Bakr, nor in ʿUmar; for Abū Bakr (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu) would turn to the Companions asking them about the sunnah of the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam), and ʿUmar would turn to the Companions consulting them and asking them: do they have any news from the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam). These extensive conditions that do not apply to anyone, let alone the scholars of later times, have been a barrier between many of the people of knowledge and benefiting from the Book and sunnah, preventing people from ijtihād, and restricting them to imitating the predecessors in their statements; because they cannot benefit from the Book and sunnah, and this is a great error, which caused the closure of the door of ijtihād in some eras. And the mujtahid became—as the author (may Allāh have mercy on him) said—either a heretic or insane, meaning: a hypocrite or insane, so no one would undertake it except those who bear these two descriptions, thus people refrained from ijtihād, and limited themselves to imitation, and there is no doubt that the door of ijtihād is open, but ijtihād is not for a person with weak capabilities to apply his opinion to the texts of the Book and sunnah and come up with what the predecessors did not. Rather, he must have a sufficient level of the attributes of a mujtahid, such as knowledge of the language, familiarity with the Book and sunnah, and knowledge of the principles of sharīʿah that enable him to reach a ruling, and as for these extensive conditions mentioned by the scholars of uṣūl, they are theoretical only, and if you applied them to those who stipulated them, you would not find them in him; for it is neither correct nor permissible. He (may Allāh have mercy on him) said in this principle: (Refuting the doubt) and the doubt: is an obstacle that presents itself to the heart, preventing it from perceiving matters as they truly are, causing confusion and ambiguity, so the one to whom the matter is unclear cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood. And he (may Allāh have mercy on him) said: [which Satan instilled to abandon the Qurʾān and sunnah] meaning: to abandon the Qurʾān and sunnah, it is a reason for abandoning the Qurʾān and sunnah, and a reason for following diverse opinions and whims, which is imitation, and he called it following as a concession, but in reality, it is imitation and not following. Then he said: [If a person is not like that—meaning: described with these attributes stipulated for the absolute mujtahid—then he must turn away from them as a definite obligation without any doubt or confusion], and this is contrary to what Allāh commanded in His Book, and Allāh (the Exalted) said: ﴿Then do they not reflect upon the Qurʾān? If it had been from [any] other than Allāh, they would have found within it much contradiction﴾ (al-Nisāʾ, 82), and He (the Exalted) said: ﴿Then do they not reflect upon the Qurʾān, or are there locks upon [their] hearts?﴾ (Muḥammad, 24), and He (the Exalted) said: ﴿[This is] a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muḥammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded﴾ (Ṣād, 29) and He (the Exalted) said: ﴿Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reason﴾ (al-Raʿd, 4), all of this is an invitation to contemplation and reflection that yields deduction and the results of ijtihād, for ijtihād is the result of contemplation, reflection, and consideration of the words of Allāh (the Exalted), so whoever does not consider the words of Allāh (the Exalted) and does not reflect upon them will not reach what he desires of legal or judicial deductions; for the way to obtain a ruling is contemplation and consideration. Then he (may Allāh have mercy on him) said: [And whoever seeks guidance from them is either a heretic or insane] meaning: due to the difficulty of understanding them, and this is wrong, for Allāh (the Exalted) says: ﴿And We have certainly made the Qurʾān easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?﴾ (al-Qamar, 17), so Allāh made the Qurʾān easy, and they say it is difficult, and the facilitation of the Qurʾān is the facilitation of its reading and understanding, not just the facilitation of verbal reading; for verbal reading for the Arabs at that time was among the easiest things, but the discussion is about facilitating understanding and simplifying it, and this is what distinguishes the Qurʾān, for it is understood by the layperson and the scholar, but this common level between the layperson and the scholar does not prevent people from differing in their understanding, for among the people are those who are given deep understanding of the Qurʾān, and among them are those who limit themselves to understanding the word at its minimum level, and this is evidenced by the differing understanding of the Companions (may Allāh be pleased with them), despite being the people of the language, in understanding the verses of the Qurʾān. This is Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allāh be pleased with him) understanding from the verse: ﴿When the victory of Allāh has come and the conquest, * And you see the people entering into the religion of Allāh in multitudes, * Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance﴾ (al-Naṣr, 1-3), what the senior Muhājirīn and Anṣār did not understand, as occurred in his story with ʿUmar (may Allāh be pleased with him) when he asked him about this sūrah; he first asked them about the sūrah and they said: This is a sūrah in which Allāh commanded His Messenger to glorify Him upon the occurrence of victory, and this is a clear meaning understood by every speaker of the language, but what Ibn ʿAbbās understood was an additional matter, which is that this sūrah announced to the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) his own demise, and that it informed him of the nearness of his end, and this is a precise understanding that only one who applies his thought and reflection and contemplation in this great Book, and in the context and sequence of the speech, reaches. Then he (may Allāh have mercy on him) said: [Glory be to Allāh and praise be to Him! How many ways has Allāh, the Exalted, clarified through legislation and decree, creation and command, to refute this cursed doubt from various angles that have reached the level of general necessities—and among that is what we mentioned of Allāh's informing of the facilitation of the Qurʾān—﴿But most of the people do not know﴾ (Ghāfir, 57)]. Then he (may Allāh have mercy on him) said in proving the bad state of these people, and that they were only prevented from understanding the Qurʾān due to something within them: [ ﴿Indeed, the word has come into effect upon most of them, so they do not believe. * Indeed, We have put shackles on their necks, and they are to their chins, so they are with heads kept aloft. * And We have put before them a barrier and behind them a barrier and covered them, so they do not see. * And it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them—they will not believe. * You can only warn one who follows the reminder and fears the Most Merciful unseen. So give him good tidings of forgiveness and noble reward﴾ (Yā Sīn, 8-11)]. So His saying (the Exalted): (Indeed, the word has come into effect) the intended meaning of the word here is the word of Allāh (the Exalted) which is what preceded in His knowledge and His book that these people do not benefit from the Qurʾān, (upon most of them) meaning: upon most of those to whom the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) was sent. And it can mean: upon most people in understanding, (they do not believe) meaning: they do not believe, nor do they submit, nor do their hearts find peace with what the messengers brought, (Indeed, We have put shackles on their necks): (in) indicates containment, and it can be with.