Understanding taqleed, impossible?

I hate taqleed. I think it is one of the reasons we as a Muslim nation AND as an independent State, are failing.

OR you say

Taqleed is what has saved us from TOTAL failure so far. You can only reach the truth if you follow the Great Aalims (Teachers!) of the old times!”

Let us make sense of this.

Taqleed is for the layman, not a professional.

And it is how the world works.

You are doing taqleed all the time. Newton tells me Force is a multiplication of mass and acceleration, I don’t concur because I don’t have enough knowledge to do that. But I do follow. That is taqleed. A doctor tells me to swallow a medicine I can’t even pronounce, that is taqleed, that is how the world works. Nothing essentially wrong with that.

But following someone’s opinion even in presence of evidence against that opinion is bad taqleed.

Einstein not coming out with his interpretation of the world around us, because he ‘respected’ Newton too much would have done us more harm than good, seemingly. The guy had evidence, the truth beckoned. (Bad example, because really, he did not OBJECT to Newton’s laws, he just gave another ‘worldview’).

Another way of looking at bad taqleed: I have evidence to support my point of view, but still I stick to what my ‘teacher’ tells me, that is the ‘bad’ taqleed. I know the medicine is bad, so the line ‘but the doctor said so‘ won’t cut it. But my ‘knowing’ REQUIRES me to either be a doctor, or to have ‘support’ of a doctor, who tells me that the medicine is bad for me. Making sense? I need ‘professional’ proof of SOME kind to go against the norm. Not going against the norm after you have ‘verified’ as much as you could, and doing so for WHATEVER reason is taqleed of the bad kind.

Unfortunately, Islam in Pakistan seems to have Ulema who follow taqleed as a rule, a rule that is taught in Madrassahs around the country. That just does not make sense. Following taqleed as a matter of principle for people who are supposed to be professionals in a field, that just doesn’t make sense.

It does, however, makes sense for me or you to ‘follow a certain school of thought’ (and even call it taqleed) WITHOUT understanding the full scope of what is being told. To understand the full scope of some of the laws would require me to FULLY comprehend the field and that will make me an Aalim (or a ‘professional of that field’).