BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE · 8 – Avoiding Giving Fatwas (Religious Edicts)
It is related from Muawiya (may Allah be pleased with him):
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings upon him) forbade perplexing questions that are asked to perplex scholars.
Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings upon him) said: "Whoever is given a legal opinion without knowledge, the sin for that legal opinion is upon the one who gave it."
The narrator, Sulaiman al-Mahri, added these sentences in his narration: “He who directs his brother to something while knowing that the truth lies elsewhere has betrayed him.” This is the wording of Sulaiman’s narration. [357]
EXPLANATION:
Whoever is asked for a legal opinion on a matter and, to avoid embarrassment or to appear knowledgeable, gives a legal opinion on something he does not know, then he has committed treachery. He has wronged both knowledge and the believing brother whom he has deceived, as if he were throttling himself with a blind blade.