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ijtihad is a technical term of the Islamic law and means the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the sources of the law, the Quran and the Sunna. The opposite of ijtihad is taqleed, imitation. The person who applies ijtihad, the mujtahid, must be a scholar of Islamic law. The word derives from the Arabic verbal root jahada "struggle", the same root as that of jihad, although the only relation between the two words is their common etymology.(The following paragraphs refer to Sunni Islam. The Shiite concept and practice of ijtihad is slightly different.)
In early Islam ijtihad was a commonly used legal practice, and was well integrated with the philosophy of kalam, its secular counterpart. It slowly fell out of practice for several reasons, most notably the efforts of the Asharite theologians, who saw it as leading to errors of over-confidence in judgement. Al-Ghazali was the most notable of these, and his " The Incoherence of the Philosophers " was the most celebrated statement of this view.
It is debated whether Al-Ghazali was observing or creating the so-called "closure of the gate of ijtihad". Some say this had occurred by the beginning of the 10th century CE, a couple of centuries after the finalizing of the major collections of hadith. In the words of Joseph Schacht: "hence a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that time onwards no one could be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in religious law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at the most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all." This theory has been put in question recently by Wael Hallaq.
What is clear is that long after the 10th century the principles of ijtihad continued to be discussed in the Islamic legal literature, and other Asharites continued to argue with their Mutazilite rivals about its applicability to sciences.
Al-Amidi ( 1233) mentions twelve common controversies about ijtihad in his book about usul al-fiqh (the theory of Islamic law) amongst others the question if the Prophet himself depended on ijtihad and if it should be allowed for a mujtahid to follow taqleed.
In Islamic political theory ijtihad is often counted as one of the essential qualifications of the caliph, f.e. by Al-Baghdadi ( 1037Events Construction of the church of Saint Sophia Cathedral is started in Kyiv. Ferdinand I of Castile and Leon becomes king of Spain. Harthacanute seizes the crown of England from his half-brother Harold I. Births Su Dongpo, Chinese poet Deaths Avicenna,) or Al-Mawardi ( 1058Events March 17 King Lulach I of Scotland is killed in battle against his cousin and rival Malcolm Canmore, who later becomes King of Scotland as Malcolm III of Scotland. End of the House of Alpin rule, beginning of the Dunkeld dynasty Antipope Benedict X). Al-Ghazali dispenses with this qualification in his legal theory and delegates the exercise of ijtihad to the UlemaUlema ( Arabic: ) is the community of legal scholars of Islam and the Sharia. Their organization and powers vary from Muslim community to community. They are most powerful in Shiah Islam where their role is institutionalized, but where they are subordinat.
Along with isnah (citation), ijtihad is considered to have been a major influence in the development of the scientific methodThe scientific method is a sequence or collection of processes that are considered characteristic of scientific investigation and the acquisition of new scientific knowledge based upon physical evidence. Science deals with assertions about the way the wor. Ironically, the loss of its application in law seems to have also led to its loss in philosophy and the sciences, which most historians think caused Muslim societies to stagnate before the 1492Events January 2 Boabdil, the last Moorish King of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of Ferdinand and Isabella after a lengthy siege. March 30 Ferdinand and Isabella sign a decree aimed at expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Roman fall of al-Andalus, after which Muslim works were translated and led in part to The Renaissance revival of classical works, using improved methods, although the Muslims themselves were no longer using these methods in their daily life at all.
