Imam branch of Shiism rejected the idea of the
infallibility of ijmaa. Instead, it was the 12th Imam
alone who could guarantee infallibility, which
means that Shii jurists had to strive to determine
what his opinion was for a particular question.
See also aUthority; mujtahid; shaFii, mUham-
mad ibn idris al-; tWelve-imam shiism.
Further reading: Wael B. Hallaq, “On the Authorita-
tiveness of Sunni Consensus,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies 18 (1986): 427–454; ———, The
Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005).
ijtihad (Arabic: striving, exerting)
A technical term employed in Islamic jurispru-
dence (fiqh), ijtihad refers to the use of indepen-
dent judgment to arrive at legal rulings in matters
that are not explicitly addressed in the qUran and
sUnna. A scholar who engages in ijtihad is known
as a mujtahid. Both terms are related to the Arabic
word jihad (struggle, effort), suggesting that, like
jihad, not all people are qualified to undertake it,
that the effort must be directed to meet a specific
end, and that it is regarded as a virtuous endeavor
even if it should fall short of its goal.
For most of its history, Islamic law has been
an ongoing process of scholarly study, reflec-
tion, debate, and critical reasoning grounded in
dynamic historical and social contexts, rather
than a code of timeless, inflexible rules. Although
modern scholars have claimed that the so-called
gate of ijtihad was closed as long ago as the 10th
century, ijtihad has, in fact, been a key aspect of
Islamic jurisprudence for centuries thereafter. It is
often contrasted with taqlid (imitation, tradition),
which refers to acceptance of rulings reached in
the past by Ulama belonging to a particular legal
school or tradition, such as one of the four chief
Sunni legal schools. The two tendencies, ijti-
had and taqlid, have sometimes worked together
and sometimes in opposite directions. Both have
played significant roles in the development of the
Islamic legal tradition. Taqlid helped preserve the
Muslim community’s memory of the sacred past,
while ijtihad helped it adapt to change and new
issues arising in the present.
In the first centuries of Islam, when the legal
tradition was only beginning to take shape in an
era of Arab-Islamic conquests, migrations, and
conversions, ijtihad was synonymous with ray,
individual opinion. Because the Quran did not
address all matters of consequence facing the
Muslim community after the death of mUhammad
in 632, and because the hadith were only begin-
ning to be collected and used for legal purposes,
Muslim leaders and judges often had the freedom
to resolve legal questions with their own indi-
vidual reason and discretion. These questions per-
tained to many areas of religion and life: worship,
family law, criminal penalties, commerce, and
warfare. The early legal authorities who supported
this method of jurisprudence were called People
of Opinion (ray). This relatively free ijtihad
resulted in the formation of localized legal tradi-
tions in the new Islamicate empire. Some legal
authorities feared that the basis of law in religion
might be lost if opinion (or ijtihad) was relied
on too much. Consequently, by the early ninth
century, the People of Opinion found that they
were opposed by the People of Hadith, who, after
the Quran, wanted to give priority to the sunna
of Muhammad and his companions, which was
derived from the hadith. The most famous leader
of the tradition-minded People of Hadith was the
Baghdadi jurist ahmad ibn hanbal (d. 855).
By the 10th century, ijtihad had gained a place
in all four of the major Sunni legal schools, but it
was more limited than in the earlier centuries. It
was considered a religious duty that had to be hon-
ored by jurists, but it was to be used only if there
was no precedent in the Quran, the sunna, or the
consensus (ijmaa) of the school in which they had
been trained. Within each school, the jurists were
ranked according to reputation, expert knowledge
in the law, and experience. Only the ones who
excelled in these qualifications, the mujtahids,K 346 ijtihad