In The Name of Allah, The Most Merciful, The Bestower of Mercy

Al-Allamah Ubaid Ibn Abdillah Al-Jabiri, may Allah have mercy upon him, said:

When the people of virtue and righteousness were faced with an adversity and an intricate matter, they would go to the senior people of knowledge to ask them and seek a Jawab Ash-Shaafee Al-Kaafee [i.e. an appropriate answer that would bring about rectification of the religious affairs and preservation of the well-being of the people based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah]. This is a followed path –beginning since the era of Prophet’s companions, then the Imams of the Tabi’in and –after them- the people of knowledge, virtue, religion and Iman. How beautiful is what Ibn Mas’ud said: “The people will not cease to be righteous and upright as long as knowledge comes to them from the companions of Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and their elders. But if knowledge comes to them from their young ones, they will be destroyed. [1] [Footnote a]

Footnote a: Shaykh Burjis then explains: “In these last two statements is one of the reasons for not taking the Ilm from the smaller ones-(as was mentioned by Ibn Qutaibah) and that is the fear that Ilm will be rejected if it comes from a younger person.(…he goes on to say…) The intent here is not to make hijrah from the Ilm of the small person (i.e. reject completely) with the presence of the older person. Rather the intent is to put the people in their correct and proper places.

[1] [الطيب الجني على شرح السنة للإمام المزني – page 19]