Taqleed vs Ijtihad; why not both?

[arzafar]

i have read some articles which put taqleed and ijtihad against each other and portray them as opposites.

my question is why do they have to be opposites. they can complement each other. In issues that have clear commands, there is taqleed and in contemporary or specific issues there can be ijtihad.

so why leave one for the other?

 

[ShahnazZ]

Your question is a bit vague but from what I gather, it seems that you're saying that taqlid and ijtihad shouldn't be independent of one another. I guess the thing to remember is that both can complement one another in certain aspects but in other aspects, they're totally different.

It could be a simple statement of comparisons. They can be comparing the two concepts and from that you see the differences between both of them. Depending on the situation at hand, all the different opinions would need to be stated based on both concepts and at times, they're very different from one another. There are also some scholars that state that taqlid is haram and it woudn't be uncommon for those scholars to then pit that against ijtihad. Honestly, it's just complicating things even more and my advice is to just follow the Quran and Sunnah to the best of your abilities using legitimate and valid sources for interpretation.

I hope this didn't cause any more confusion. The question seemed a bit vague to me but I answered it based on what it sounded like to me.