Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
I am sure you are aware of the growing prevalence in the West of Sayyid Saabiq’s Fiqh-us-Sunnah, as a fiqh manual for the shebab who rely upon it. What is your opinion of this book, and what it contains? Those who I have seen with it, seek to find the majority ruling on each case by this book and follow it. Is this permissible, or recommended?
Answer:
Walaikum assalam,
The scholars tell us that though a good effort in some ways, Fiqh al-Sunnah is not a reliable manual of fiqh.
It has a lot of errors in transmitting the positions of each school;
It often leaves out key conditions of an imam or school’s opinion;
It often presents an opinion in a confusing way, which can lead to serious misunderstanding;
It can lead to talfiq: joining between the positions of the imams in one particular action in a way that no one imam would consider valid. This is invalid by scholarly consensus (as transmitted by Ibn Hajar, Ibn Abidin, and others), except in very exceptional circumstances.
Faraz Rabbani.