There are four schools of Islamic Law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali). They deal with the legal requirements of the religion e.g. the rules of inheritance, the rules of fasting etc. With every legal issue, there are four different positions and plenty of agreement. All four of these schools are considered to be rightly guided and the traditional Muslim followed one of them. He was either a Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, or Hanbali (or Jafari in Shi'ite Islam).
It was originally considered improper for an ordinary Muslim to give their own opinion on legal matters. Instead, they would give you the opinion of their respective school and its jurists.
Many modern Muslims do not follow any of these schools and so they give you their own unprofessional opinion based on their understanding of the Quran and Hadith.
Hadith was actually compiled for the scholars (ulama). It was not really meant for commoners. That is why Sufyan ibn 'Uyayna (d. 815), a prominent scholar, was able to say: "Hadith is a source of misguidance except for the jurists (fuqaha)".
Anybody who studies this material is in need of a teacher. Imam Malik’s companion `Abd Allah ibn Wahb said:
“Were it not for Malik and al-Layth I would have perished; I used to think everything that is [authentically] related from the Prophet ﷺ must be put into practice.”
Another version states,
“I gathered a lot of ahadith and they drove me to confusion. I would consult Malik and al-Layth and they would say to me, ‘take this Hadith and leave this Hadith.”
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