Ijtihad Theory

Abstract

This elastic term ijtihad has pushed both Sunni jurists and historians of Sunni jurisprudence to the point of exhaustion. The more you consider it, and the longer you investigate how both participants in jurisprudence and its observers have understood its ranks and functions, the more elusive it seems to become. Ijtihad denotes a capacity to exert oneself to produce a legal opinion. This production may be through devising an opinion by the jurist who answers an inquiry, or it may be through conveying a recorded opinion this jurist has the authority to convey, customized as it may be to the case of the questioner. In either case, the jurist may arguably be called a mujtahid, someone who possesses the capacity of ijtihad. [To digress briefly, the elasticity of terms indicating high authorities such as ijtihad is not unique to the status of an authority in law; the term hafiz (expert in hadith) received similar treatments, and the same is true of the lower (or more generic) rank of muhaddith.)¹