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طَبَقَاتُ الْفُقَهَاءِ · Ṭabaqāt al-Fuqahāʾ: Seven Tiers of Jurist, and Who Is Fit to Give Fatwā at All

الطَّبَقَةُ الْأُولَى: الْمُجْتَهِدُونَ فِي الشَّرْعِ · Independent Mujtahids

They set their own uṣūl, meaning their own base rules. They take branch rulings straight from the four proofs: Qurʾān, Sunna, ijmāʿ and qiyās. They follow no one, not on base rules and not on branch rulings.

Examples: the four Imāms. Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150H), Mālik (d. 179H), al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204H), Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241H). Also independent mujtahids outside the four schools that survived, such as al-Thawrī (d. 161H), al-Awzāʿī (d. 157H) and Ibn Abī Laylā (d. 148H).

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الطَّبَقَةُ الثَّانِيَةُ: الْمُجْتَهِدُونَ فِي الْمَذْهَبِ · Mujtahids within the Madhhab

They can take rulings from those same four proofs. But they do it by the base rules their teacher set. They differ from him on some branch rulings. They still follow him on the base rules.

Examples: Abū Yūsuf (d. 182H), Muḥammad (d. 189H), and the rest of Abū Ḥanīfa's companions.

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الطَّبَقَةُ الثَّالِثَةُ: مُجْتَهِدُو الْمَسَائِلِ الَّتِي لَا رِوَايَةَ فِيهَا · Mujtahids on Issues With No Transmitted Report

They never leave the Imām, not on base rules and not on branch rulings. They work out rulings only for cases where nothing came down from him. They use his own base rules to do it.

Examples: al-Khaṣṣāf (d. 261H), Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 321H), Abū al-Ḥasan al-Karkhī (d. 340H), Shams al-Aʾimma al-Ḥulwānī (d. 456H), Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsī (d. c. 500H), Fakhr al-Islām al-Bazdawī (d. 482H), Fakhr al-Dīn Qāḍīkhān (d. 593H).

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الطَّبَقَةُ الرَّابِعَةُ: أَصْحَابُ التَّخْرِيجِ · Ahl al-Takhrij

They cannot do ijtihād at all. But they know the base rules fully, and they know where each ruling comes from. So when a statement was left broad and can be read two ways, they can say which reading is meant.

Example: al-Rāzī, that is Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, known as al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370H). And others like him.

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الطَّبَقَةُ الْخَامِسَةُ: أَصْحَابُ التَّرْجِيحِ · Ahl al-Tarjih

They are muqallids. They follow, rather than judge for themselves. Their job is to prefer one report over another. They say things like: this one is better; this is the sounder report; this fits qiyās better; this is easier for people.

Examples: Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Qudūrī (d. 428H), and the author of al-Hidāya, al-Marghīnānī (d. 593H). Note: many books write "Abū al-Ḥasan al-Qudūrī." That is a copying mistake. The right name is Abū al-Ḥusayn.

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الطَّبَقَةُ السَّادِسَةُ: أَصْحَابُ التَّمْيِيزِ · The Discriminating Muqallidun

They can sort rulings into strongest, strong and weak. They can tell the school's main record, ẓāhir al-riwāya, apart from a rare report. They do not do the weighing themselves. They know how others already graded each view. Because of that, they keep rejected views out of their books.

Examples: the men who wrote the relied-upon mutūn, the main texts. Ṣāḥib al-Kanz (al-Nasafī, d. 710H), Ṣāḥib al-Mukhtār (al-Mawṣilī, d. 683H), Ṣāḥib al-Wiqāya (Burhān al-Sharīʿa al-Maḥbūbī, d. c. 673H), Ṣāḥib al-Majmaʿ (Ibn al-Sāʿātī, d. 694H).

How this differs from tier 5. Tarjīḥ means checking views and preferring one over another. That is itself a kind of ijtihād. Tamyīz only means knowing what the people of tarjīḥ already decided, and gathering it up. It plays no part in the checking.

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الطَّبَقَةُ السَّابِعَةُ: الْمُقَلِّدُ الْمَحْضُ · The Pure Muqallid

Followers who can do none of the above. They cannot tell a strong view from a weak one. They cannot tell left from right. They gather whatever they find, like a man picking up firewood in the dark. Woe to anyone who follows them.

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الْفِقْهُ لَا يُنَالُ إِلَّا بِالتَّفَقُّهِ عَلَى أُسْتَاذٍ · Why Looking It Up Is Not Enough: You Need a Teacher

Knowing fiqh is not the same as being able to look a question up. If it were, fiqh would be the easiest thing there is. The right answer often sits in a different book. And a ruling stated flat in one place may carry conditions given somewhere else.

Ibn Nujaym gives two rules. First, when jurists state something flat, there are usually conditions on it, and only someone with sound understanding knows them. Second, these rulings were reasoned out, so you cannot grasp them fully without knowing the reasoning they rest on.

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الماهر الذي أخذ العلم عن أهله · Who Is Actually Fit to Give Fatwā

This is Ibn ʿĀbidīn's answer to the self-taught man just described. The skilled one took knowledge from its people until it became second nature in him. He can tell the sound from the rest. He knows the questions and what hangs on them, in the reliable way. He is the one who gives people fatwā. He is fit to stand between them and Allah.

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