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영어

This paper focusses on the concept of Ijtihād in Islam, its appearance and the qualifications for a mujtahid. Ijtihād means a judgement through reasoned deduction by scholars (ʿUlamāʾ) and lawyers (Fuqahāʾ) with adequate knowledge of Islam in order to obtain the answers to certain matters. According to some of Muslim traditionalists and western scholars, the door of Ijtihād in Islam has been closed since the ninth or tenth century due to their misconception of Ijtihād despite its intermittent activities. With the introduction of western laws to Islamic countries in the nineteenth century, Islamic law had to be in harmony with Ijtihād to resolve various secular issues. In order to be a Mujtahid, a scholar was required to have the power of discernment, because it was a foundation of the Islamic legal sources like Ijtihād or Ijmāʿ.