Ijtihad: Meaning & Nature

The term ijtihad is derived from the root “jahd” and “juhd” as its verbal form meaning exerting oneself to the utmost. It is an effort, hardship and to take trouble, but juhd means might, capacity, capability. The term Ijtihad combines both meanings it its essence. Imam Ghazali defines Ijtihad as follows: “Ijtihad means to expend one’s capacity in a certain matter and to use it to the utmost. This term is used particularly on such occasions where hardship and effort are involved….Scholars, however, have defined to mean the expending of the fullest capacity by a Mujtahid in seeking the knowledge of Sharia laws. The perfect ijtihad would mean that one has spent so much effort in the pursuit of the knowledge of shariah that further pursuit is humanly impossible.” Imam Fakhr al-Din Razi defines Ijtihad in typical theological mode: “To exert one’s effort in Nazar (juristic reasoning by way of analogy) to the extent than no blame may be forthcoming in this respect.” Abu Zuhrah defines Ijtihad as: “Jurist’s utmost effort to infer practical legal injunctions from the sources of the Shariah.”Abdur Rahim says, “Ijtihad is the capacity for making deductions in matters of law in cases to which no express text or a rule already determined by Ijma is applicable. The legal effect of the Ijtihad is the probability of the conclusions so arrived at being correct, but the possibility of such conclusions being erroneous is not excluded. Ijtihad literally means ‘exerting oneself to the utmost degree to attain an object’ and, technically, ‘exerting oneself to form an opinion in a case or as to rule of law’. It is a power of independent interpretation of law. It is to reapply an unchanging principal of Islam to the changing situation of the time. Or we can say that ijtihad is to find Islamic answers to the questions which are not covered directly by Quran and Sunnah. W.B. Hallaq has taken the help of Imam Ghazali’s illustration who has compared science of legal theory in terms of tree cultivated by man. The fruits of the tree represent the legal norms or rules; the stem and the branches are the textual materials and the human agency i.e. a cultivator who has a definite role to play in making up the cultivation methods, thus, cultivator is the human agent whose creative legal reasoning is directed toward producing the fruit, the legal norm. The jurist (faqih) or the jurisconsult(mufti), who is capable of practicing such legal reasoning is known as the mujtahid, he who exercises his utmost effort in extracting a rule from the subject matter of revelation while following the principles hand procedures established in legal theory.
The process of this reasoning is known as ijtihad, the effort itself. Ijtihad is a Doctrine which implies the exercise of one’s utmost reason to deduce a principle compatible with the Shariah i.e the injunctions of Quran and Sunnah. Where the Scriptural texts are silent and do not cover a new situation, an independent effort is called for as a result of compelling necessity to lay down the line of actions. As a measure of foresight, the principle of ijtihad was devised to provide for accommodation of future needs, so that new rulings might be formulated in new cases where no specific Law exists in the Quran and Hadith. Ijtihad is basically the service to meet the growing legal requirements of the expanding Commonwealth of Muslims. In the early period ra’y (considered personal opinion) was the basic instrument of Ijtihad. The term Ijtihad in the early period was used in a narrower and more specialized sense than it came to be used in al-Shafi and later one. It conveyed the meaning of fair discretionary judgment or expert’s opinion. The Prophet (SAW) appointed Mu’adh RA as a Governor, judge, mentor and Mujtahid for the people of Yemen and ordered him to be followed. He allowed him, not only to give Fatwas based on the Qur’an and Sunnah, but also to use and exercise his own judgment. The general misconception about doing ijtihad is that it may lead to deviation from the path already laid by the injunctions of Shariah. But it is not the case. In fact ijtihad is not the freedom of judgment as some modernists believe. Certain modernists over the past century have tried to change the Shariah, to reopen the gate of ijtihad, with the aim of incorporating modern practices into the Law and limiting the functioning of Shariah to personal life. All of these activities emanate from a particular attitude of spiritual weakness vis-à-vis the world and surrender to the world. Those who are conquered by such a mentality want to make the Shariah ‘conform to the times’ which means to the whims and fancies of men and the ever changing human nature which has made ‘the times’. They do not realize that it is the Shari’ah according to which society should be modeled not vice versa.
(The author presently pursing Ph.D at Law Department Kashmir University Srinagar has written a book on Shariah. He has desired to publish some chapters of the book in “Kashmir Horizon”. We will be publishing several chapters of the book on Saturdays of the coming weeks. Views are exclusively his own)