[Signabeademia]

brothers.

So, taking it from the post of Sidi Suleiman Ibn Salim:

The quote I brought forth makes sense in the shafi'i context -- basically, within the madh-hab, there are degrees of tarjeeh; everyone is familliar with the weight of an-Nawawi's positions (as well as ar-Rafi'i, to a lesser extent). The final stage was with relatively late scholars like ar-Ramli and Ibn Hajar al-Haytami. Habib Ahmad b. Hasan was clearly referring to the latest stage. I remember from a lecture of Shaykh Taha Karaan that the shafi'i muqallid has a choice between following Ibn Hajar or ar-Ramli in issues which an-Nawawi had not discussed (though I could have remembered incorrectly) - if a scholar has the capacity to distinguish between the two positions, then why not choose based on knowledge as opposed to random choice? Of course, if a scholar was of an even higher rank, he may make tarjeeh higher up on the scale. Find sh Taha's series of lectures on the development of the shafi'i madh-hab (i think there are two lectures split into many parts). He explains the ranks of ijtihad as well as how the madh-hab spread.