38 - The religion reformer says:

 "It is haram to follow a muqallid. A person who has heard a sahih hadith cannot be told to compare this hadith with so and so's ijtihad and to act upon it if it is in agreement with it. He can be told to investigate if it is mansukh. But this is a job for an expert. Those who are not experts should obey the ayat, "Those who do not know should ask those who know!" and ask those who are experts. It is good for a person to love all the mujtahid imams and to follow each of them in cases in which he is sure they agree with the Sunnat."

 Certainly it is haram to follow a muqallid. But, believing and acting upon the information given by a Muslim who is muqallid does not mean following him. A person cannot be told, "Compare this hadith with so and so's ijtihad and act upon it if it is in agreement with it." But he can be told, "Compare what you understand from this hadith ash-Sharif with the ijtihad of your madhhab's imam. If they are unlike each other, act in accord not with what you understand but with what your madhhab's imam understood." Sanaullah-i PaniPuti (rahmat-Allahu ta'ala 'alaih), a great Islamic scholar of India who died in 1225 A.H. (1810), said in the tafsir of the 64th ayat of Surat al 'Imran in Tafsir-i mazhari written by him in 1197: "If one encounters a sahih hadith, and if it is known that it is not mansukh, and if a fatwa of al-Imam al-azam Abu Hanifa (rahmat-Allahi ta'ala 'alaih), for example, is not consistent with it while one of the other three madhhabs has an ijtihad consistent with this hadith, one who is Hanafi has to practice not the fatwa of his imam but this hadith by following the other madhhab which employed ijtihad according to this hadith, [Abu Hanifa (rahmat-Allahi 'alaih), seeing that this hadith had ta'wil (inexplicit meanings), followed another hadith with a clear meaning. If one of the four madhhabs has followed a hadith, we have to follow it, too.] because Abu Hanifa said, 'If you see a hadith or a saying of a Sahabi, avoid my fatwa and follow it!' Thus, one will have not ignored ijma' since the scholars of the Ahl as-Sunnat have had solely the four madhhabs since the fourth century. Other than these four, there is no madhhab for Sunni Muslims to follow in 'ibadat. By ijma', words which do not conform with one of these madhhabs are batil (wrong). The hadith says, 'The statement reported unanimously by the Umma cannot be heretical or false.' The 115th ayat of Surat an-Nisa declares, 'We will throw into Hell the dissenter from the believers' path.' It was improbable and impossible for the imams of the four madhhabs and the great scholars trained by them to skip even one hadith. By ijma', a hadith is of mansukh or tawil if none of them has followed it." Hence, when one sees that an ijtihad of an imam al-madhhab is inconsistent with a hadith, one should say, "The imam concluded that it was of mansukh or tawil," rather than saying, "He did not hear or follow it." The religion reformer, as quoted in the 30th article, has said, "The usul scholars' deducing the necessity of taqlid from the ayat, 'If you do not know, ask those who know!' is a fruitless and unsound deduction and reasoning." Here, however, he says, "Those who are not experts should obey the ayat, 'Those who do not know should ask those who know!' and ask those who are experts."