Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani / taleemulislam.net
The real call of Islam is to obey Allah alone, no Muslim will deny. It is Wajib (obligatory) to obey the Prophet (pbuh), only because he demonstrated the injunctions of Allah with his words and deeds. We have to obey Allah and His Messenger in the things they told us. If anyone obeys someone else instead and regards him as worthy of obedience then he is outside the folds of Islam.
However, there are commands which every literate person can understand without a semblance of doubt. For instance, the Quran says:
وَلَا يَغْتَب بَّعْضُكُم بَعْضًا ۚ
And backbite not one another. (49:12)
Every person who knows a little Arabic will get the message...
In contrast, there are some commands in the Quran and the Ahadith of the Prophet (pbuh) that present some difficulty, or seem to differ from another portion of the Quran or Ahadith.
For example, the Quran says:
وَالْمُطَلَّقَاتُ يَتَرَبَّصْنَ بِأَنفُسِهِنَّ ثَلَاثَةَ قُرُوءٍ
And the divorced women shall wait, keeping themselves apart, for three quru. (2:228)
Quru is used both for menstruation and purity...
So, how should she act?
Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanwi has written:
“ Issues are of three kinds:
1: Those in which the text is debatable.
2: Those that allow for different interpretations.
3: Those whose meaning is clear and understandable.
Thus in the first kind, the Mujtahid (scholar) has to make Ijtihad, while others will have to follow him (make Taqleed of him). The second kind, too calls for Ijtihad and Taqleed.
The third kind allows neither Ijtihad nor Taqleed.”
That’s why Allah says: فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
“So ask the people of the message if you do not know.”
If you want to know more about this, study the below book: